Earlobe

Free (left) and attached earlobes (right)

The earlobe (Latin lobulus auriculae ) is the soft appendix on the lower part of the auricle . It does not serve any known biological function. In contrast to the rest of the auricle, it does not contain any cartilage , but only fatty tissue . The earlobe is not particularly sensitive to pain and is therefore used to collect blood drops for laboratory purposes.

The earlobes can be free (hanging from the head or ear) or attached. For a long time it was believed that attached earlobes are inherited recessively , free ones dominantly . However, inheritance is much more complicated: up to 49 different gene variants are involved in the development of this trait.

The free earlobes are twice as common in the population as the grown ones.

Ear lobes are considered the erogenous zone and are the most common place for piercings in the form of ear holes for earrings .

Individual evidence

^ Karl Zilles, Bernhard Tillmann : Anatomie . Springer, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-540-69483-0 , pp. 693 .
↑ Joachim Knappe: The genes . TESSLOFF, 2001, ISBN 978-3-7886-0674-9 , pp. 12 .
^ John R. Shaffer, Jinxi Li, Myoung Keun Lee, Jasmien Roosenboom, Ekaterina Orlova: Multiethnic GWAS Reveals Polygenic Architecture of Earlobe Attachment . In: The American Journal of Human Genetics . tape 101 , no. 6 , November 30, 2017, p. 913-924 , doi : 10.1016 / j.ajhg.2017.10.001 .

[1] Karl Zilles, Bernhard Tillmann : Anatomie . Springer, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-540-69483-0 , pp. 693 .

[2] Joachim Knappe: The genes . TESSLOFF, 2001, ISBN 978-3-7886-0674-9 , pp. 12 .

[3] John R. Shaffer, Jinxi Li, Myoung Keun Lee, Jasmien Roosenboom, Ekaterina Orlova: Multiethnic GWAS Reveals Polygenic Architecture of Earlobe Attachment . In: The American Journal of Human Genetics . tape 101 , no. 6 , November 30, 2017, p. 913-924 , doi : 10.1016 / j.ajhg.2017.10.001 .