The pelvic girdle is also known as the pelvis skeleton or bony pelvis. It is a large, bilaterally symmetric, compound bone structure, consisting of the os coxa, sacrum and coccyx. The top or forward part of the pelvis is called the pelvic inlet, and its edge the pelvic brim. A related skeletal structure, found mainly in birds and dinosaurs, is the synsacrum.
In mammals, the pelvic girdle has a gap in the middle, significantly larger in females than in males. Babies pass through this gap when they are born.
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Famous quotes containing the word skeleton:
“Grammar is a tricky, inconsistent thing. Being the backbone of speech and writing, it should, we think, be eminently logical, make perfect sense, like the human skeleton. But, of course, the skeleton is arbitrary, too. Why twelve pairs of ribs rather than eleven or thirteen? Why thirty-two teeth? It has something to do with evolution and functionalism—but only sometimes, not always. So there are aspects of grammar that make good, logical sense, and others that do not.”
—John Simon (b. 1925)