splenius capitis

A muscle that arises from the lower half of the ligamentum nuchæ, from the spinous process of the seventh cervical vertebra, and from the spinous processes of the upper three or four thoracic vertebræ and inserts the mastoid process of the temporal bone, and into the rough surface on the occipital bone just below the lateral third of the superior nuchal line[WP,modified]. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the splenius capitis is

A muscle that arises from the lower half of the ligamentum nuchæ, from the spinous process of the seventh cervical vertebra, and from the spinous processes of the upper three or four thoracic vertebræ and inserts the mastoid process of the temporal bone, and into the rough surface on the occipital bone just below the lateral third of the superior nuchal line[WP,modified]. The atlas records it as a muscle at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the splenius capitis is

It sits in the neck, back and trunk, within the muscular system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.

What the splenius capitis connects to

The atlas records 5 typed relationships for it, across 4 kinds of connection. part of dorsal part of neck.

Supply and innervation

This dataset asserts no arterial supply, venous drainage or innervation for the splenius capitis. Only a minority of structures carry those edges here, so an empty answer means nothing has been recorded — not that there is nothing to record.

Also called

Also recorded as splenius capitis muscle and musculus splenius capitis. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0000711, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

• Part of: dorsal part of neck.
• A kind of: muscle of neck and splenius.
• inserts into: mastoid process of temporal bone.
• originates from: nuchal ligament.

Questions

Where is the splenius capitis?

It sits in the neck, back and trunk, within the muscular system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.

What does the splenius capitis connect to?

Part of: dorsal part of neck.

Is the splenius capitis 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.