The Ossicles
Anterior View of the Ossicles
After sketching all the individual bones, here are all three of them together in situ, but what do they do ? These three small bones (the hammer. The Anvil & Stirrup) carry sound waves from the ear drum to the Cochlea and its a nice bit of mechanics.
First of all, sound waves hit the tympanic membrane (AKA as the Ear Drum) , the vibrations are then carried through the Malleus, Incus and finally the stapes which then takes these vibrations to the inner ear. They effectively act as a lever and give a mechanical advantage, by not just the lever effect, but also my reducing the area of force. If the sound waves went direct from the ear drum to the inner ear, they would be a lot weaker – Its a nice bit of design.
There are also muscles attached to the ossicles which can control the extent of movement which is believed to protect the inner ear from loud noises. Interestingly in Bats, these muscles are highly developed and seem to be crucial in their sonar and echolocation senses.
So there you have it ladies and gentlemen, the Ossicles. As for the drawing itself, I’m not too happy with it. Not just because I used my old pad after the luxury of using the heavier a5 pad, but because after mentioning last week about looking at other areas when it comes to shading, I started all guns in on the Malleus with a 6B which didn’t really give us much room for shading darker areas afterwards. Thankfully the HB came to the rescue on the Tymponic cavity, but my original intention was to have that darker and the ossicles lighter.
[...] we go back to the middle ear for a second, sound waves there have been converted into mechanical vibrations which have then come [...]
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