![]() While some people possess more ribs or more vertebrae than the average, other people possess fewer ribs, vertebrae, or digits, resulting in a remarkable range in the number of bones in adult bodies. In the United States, 1 in 1,000 individuals is polydactyl, meaning that they were born with more than 10 fingers or 10 toes. That being said, some adults are bonier than others. Fastened together with strong, fibrous "sutures," this skeletal fusion is why the 270 bones of a baby become the 206 bones of an adult. As ossification occurs, some baby bones also start smushing together, fusing into single, solid structures. Once born, however, a baby's bones begin to ossify, being surrounded and supplanted by harder, heavier bones. This allows a baby to squeeze through tight spaces, both before birth and during delivery. Being both firm and flexible, all that cartilage makes a baby's bones much more malleable than an adult's. When we're babies, many of our bones are made out of cartilage, a smooth, shock-absorbing tissue that also appears throughout the adult skeleton, though in comparatively small amounts. ![]() The average adult body boasts about 206 bones, but babies are born with around 300, which meld together as they mature and age. (Credit: Olga Bolbot/Shutterstock) How Many Bones Are in the Human Skeleton? ![]() The average adult body is armed with around 206 bones, from the scapula to the sternum to the sacrum.
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