Hand Facts for Kids

A Picture of Human Hands
  • Organ Name: Hand, (Hands plural)
  • Organ Purpose: Allow manipulation of objects
  • Organ Location: At the end of each arm
  • Organ Count: 2, left hand and right hand
  • Organ FMA ID: 9712
  • Organ TA ID: A01.1.00.025

28 Hand Facts for Kids

  1. A hand is a five finger appendage located at the end of a human forearm.
  2. Hands allow humans to manipulate objects, lift heavy objects and complete small complex tasks with their fingers.
  3. A human with no biological abnormalities has two hands, a left hand and a right hand.
  4. A human with no biological abnormalities has five fingers on each hand.
  5. The five fingers on the human hand are the thumb, index finger, middle finger, ring finger and little finger.
  6. Some anatomists don’t consider the thumb a finger, and in those situations the hand is considered to have four fingers and a thumb.
  7. A person can be right-handed or left-handed.
  8. A person who is right-handed person will use their right hand most of the time to complete tasks, while a left-handed person will use their left hand.
  9. It’s estimated that 90% of the human population is right-handed.
  10. The human hand is divided into three main sections.
  11. The three main sections of the human hand are the carpus, metacarpus and fingers.
  12. The human hand is made up of 27 different bones.
  13. The human hand has 8 carpal bones.
  14. The human hand has 5 metacarpal bones.
  15. The human hand has 14 phalange bones.
  16. The phalange bones are also known as finger bones.
  17. The bones in the human hand make up about 25% of all the bones in the human body.
  18. The human hand has over 30 muscles that work together with joints, bones and nerves to give mobility.
  19. The hands receive their blood supply from two main arteries.
  20. There are skin and muscle on the human hand are powered by three nerves.
  21. The three nerves powering the human hand are the radial nerve (nervus radialis), the median nerve (nervus medianus) and the ulnar nerve (nervus ulnaris).
  22. The palm of the human hand has over 17,000 touch receptors and free nerve endings.
  23. Over the course of an entire human lifespan the fingers on a human hand bend and stretch over 25 million times.
  24. Humans have the most advanced hands and fingers on the planet, but other animals also have forearm appendages that are anatomically classified as hands.
  25. Animals that have appendages that are anatomically classified as hands are chimpanzees, lemurs and monkeys.
  26. The Foundational Model of Anatomy Ontology (FMA) ID for a human hand is 9712.
  27. The Terminologia Anatomica (TA) ID for a human hand is A01.1.00.025.
  28. The Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) ID for a human hand is D006225.

Additional Resources on the Human Hand

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