biology

Temple (anatomy)

Temple (anatomy) is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Temple (anatomy) rather than just read about it. In short: The temple, also known as the pterion, is a latch where four skull bones intersect: the frontal, parietal, temporal, and sphenoid. It is located on the side of the head behind the eye between the forehead and the ear.

Key takeaways

Temple (anatomy) belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Temple (anatomy) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Temple (anatomy) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The temple, also known as the pterion, is a latch where four skull bones intersect: the frontal, parietal, temporal, and sphenoid. It is located on the side of the head behind the eye between the forehead and the ear. The temporal muscle covers this area and is used during mastication. Cladistics classifies land vertebrates based on the presence of an upper hole, a lower hole, both, or neither in the cover of dermal bone that formerly covered the temporalis muscle, whose origin is the temple and whose insertion is the jaw.

Etymology The word "temple" as used in anatomy has a separate etymology from the other meaning of word temple, meaning "place of worship". Both come from Latin, but the word for the place of worship comes from templum, whereas the word for the part of the head comes from Vulgar Latin *tempula, modified from tempora, plural form ("both temples") of tempus, a word that refers both to "time" and to this part of the head. Due to its shared spelling (but not shared source) with the word for time, the adjective for both is "temporal" (both "pertaining to time" and "pertaining to the anatomical temple"). The name of the temporalis muscle looks like a form of the Latin word "tempus" meaning "time", but this is a coincidence and the two words do not come from the same root.

See also Pterion, the weakest part of the skull

References

External links

Media related to Temple (anatomy) at Wikimedia Commons

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Temple (anatomy)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Temple (anatomy) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Temple (anatomy) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Temple (anatomy) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Temple (anatomy)

In research: Temple (anatomy) appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Temple (anatomy) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Temple (anatomy) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Human head and neck, Vertebrate anatomy, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Temple (anatomy) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Temple (anatomy) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Temple (anatomy) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Temple (anatomy) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Temple (anatomy) in simple terms?

Why does Temple (anatomy) matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Temple (anatomy)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Temple (anatomy).