Hand anatomy
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hand bones
ANATOMY
Bones and joints (Figure 20). The hand. The framework of the hand is formed by five metacarpal bones; the digits (four fingers and a thumb) are made up of small bones called phalanges. Each finger has three phalanges (proximal, middle, and distal); the thumb has two (proximal and distal). The digits and their metacarpal rays are numbered from one to five, starting with the thumb.
A hand ( med. / lat. : manus, pl. manūs) is a prehensile , multi- fingered extremity located at the end of an arm or forelimb of primates and humans , chimpanzees , monkeys , and lemurs . A few other vertebrates such as the koala (which has two opposable thumbs on each "hand" and fingerprints remarkably similar to human fingerprints) are often described as having either "hands" or "paws" on their front limbs. Hands are the main structures for physically manipulating the environment, used for both gross motor skills (such as grasping a large object) and fine motor skills (such as picking up a small pebble). The fingertips contain some of the densest areas of nerve endings on the body, are the richest source of tactile feedback, and have the greatest positioning capability of the body; thus the sense of touch is intimately associated with hands.
Hand
