thymus
Anatomical structure of largely lymphoid tissue that functions in cell-mediated immunity by being the site where T cells develop. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.
What the thymus is
Anatomical structure of largely lymphoid tissue that functions in cell-mediated immunity by being the site where T cells develop. The atlas records it as a gland at the organ scale in the human body.
Where the thymus is
It sits within the endocrine and lymphatic & immune systems. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.
What the thymus connects to
The atlas records 26 typed relationships for it, across 10 kinds of connection. part of endocrine system, hematopoietic system and immune system.
Supply and innervation
Arterial supply: thymic artery. Venous drainage: thymic vein.
Also called
Also recorded as thymus gland and thymus organ. Searching any of those names reaches this page.
Source
Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0002370, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.
- Part of: endocrine system, hematopoietic system and immune system.
- A kind of: anatomical structure, endocrine gland, hemolymphoid system gland, hemopoietic organ, immune organ and organism subdivision.
- contains: thymus epithelium, capsule of thymus, cortex of thymus, medulla of thymus, thymus lobe and thymus lobule, and 1 more.
- contributes to morphology of: thymus epithelium, thymus lobule and thymus trabecula.
- subtype: cervical thymus and thoracic thymus.
- bounding layer of: capsule of thymus.
- left of: left thymus lobe.
- right of: right thymus lobe.
Questions
Where is the thymus?
It sits within the endocrine and lymphatic & immune systems. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.
What does the thymus connect to?
Part of: endocrine system, hematopoietic system and immune system.
Is the thymus 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.