rectus femoris

The Rectus femoris muscle is one of the four quadriceps muscles of the human body. (The others are the vastus medialis, the vastus intermedius, and the vastus lateralis. All four combine to form the quadriceps tendon, which inserts into the patella and continues as the patellar ligament. ) The Rectus femoris is situated in the middle of the front of the thigh; it is fusiform in shape, and its superficial fibers are arranged in a bipenniform manner, the deep fibers running straight down to the deep aponeurosis. [WP,unvetted]. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the rectus femoris is

The Rectus femoris muscle is one of the four quadriceps muscles of the human body. (The others are the vastus medialis, the vastus intermedius, and the vastus lateralis. All four combine to form the quadriceps tendon, which inserts into the patella and continues as the patellar ligament. ) The Rectus femoris is situated in the middle of the front of the thigh; it is fusiform in shape, and its superficial fibers are arranged in a bipenniform manner, the deep fibers running straight down to the deep aponeurosis. [WP,unvetted]. The atlas records it as a muscle at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the rectus femoris is

It sits in the lower limb, within the muscular system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.

What the rectus femoris connects to

The atlas records 6 typed relationships for it, across 5 kinds of connection. part of quadriceps femoris.

Supply and innervation

Innervation: femoral nerve.

Also called

Also recorded as musculus rectos femoris. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0001378, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

• Part of: quadriceps femoris.
• A kind of: quadriceps femoris.
• originates from: acetabular part of hip bone and quadriceps femoris.
• antagonist of: muscle of posterior compartment of hindlimb stylopod.
• Innervated by: femoral nerve.

Questions

Where is the rectus femoris?

It sits in the lower limb, within the muscular system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.

What does the rectus femoris connect to?

Part of: quadriceps femoris.

Is the rectus femoris the same in other species?

Leumas holds the same relationship vocabulary for every species it carries, so where another dataset records this structure you can put the two side by side on /compare.