Skin muscle

Under skin muscle ( lat. Musculi cutanei ) refers to striated muscle between the skin and fascia is stored. It has no direct contact with the skeleton , but mainly serves to move the skin. The skin muscles are only slightly developed in humans, since humans can reach practically any part of the body with their hands . In the other mammals , it extends over the head, neck, shoulder and abdomen and is mainly used to ward off insects by twitching the skin . The skin muscles of the head also play a role in facial expressions .

Skin muscles of the head and neck

The platysma is developed on the neck in humans . When predators two neck skin muscles (come sphincter colli superficialis and profundus ) ago. In ungulates , only one skin muscle, the cutaneus colli muscle , is developed, which is located in the back of the neck.

The platysma also extends to the head. In ungulates it is only developed in the region of the masseter muscle and is referred to here as the scalp muscle ( cutaneus facei muscle ).

Skin muscles of the trunk

In humans, no skin muscles are developed in the trunk area.

In animals, most of the abdomen is covered by the trunk skin muscle ( musculus cutaneus trunci ), which extends from the rib area to the knee fold with an approximately horizontal fiber course. In large animals (e.g. horses and cattle) it is up to 2 cm thick, in dogs only about 1 mm. In ungulates, this muscle extends to the shoulder and upper arm area as the cutaneus omobrachialis muscle . The trunk skin muscle causes the trunk skin to twitch to repel insects ( pannicular reflex ). The innervation is provided by the lateral thoracic nerve .

In some species, small muscle bands split off from the trunk skin muscle, called foreskin muscles ( muscles preputiales cranialis and caudalis ). They allow the foreskin to be actively pulled back and forth .

literature

• Franz-Viktor Salomon, Hans Geyer, Uwe Gille (ed.): Anatomy for veterinary medicine. Enke, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8304-1007-7 .