Question

What are flat bones? What is their function?

Answer 1

Occipital (unpaired), frontal (paired) and parietal (paired) are flat bones of `tt(color(brown)"neurocranium"`. Nasal (paired), lacrimal (paired) and Vomer (unpaired) are flat bones of `tt(color(brown)"viscerocranium"`. .

Explanation:

As their name indicates these look like flat plates of bones. And their main role is to --

1. provide protection as in case of brain, and
2. act as base for muscular attachment.
3. act as factory of red blood cells (important especially in adults where marrow inside long bones are not haemopoietic any more).

Two surfaces of flat bones are formed of compact bone to provide strength for protection and central potion constitutes of spongy bone with varying amounts of red bone marrow.

The anatomy of flat bone(frontal bone) has been shown in above image.

Hope it helps...