sagittal plane

Examples of sagittal plane in the following topics:

• Animal Characterization Based on Body Symmetry

  • Bilateral symmetry involves the division of the animal through a sagittal plane, resulting in two mirror-image, right and left halves, such as those of a butterfly, crab, or human body .
  • This monarch butterfly demonstrates bilateral symmetry down the sagittal plane, with the line of symmetry running from ventral to dorsal and dividing the body into two left and right halves.

• Animal Body Planes and Cavities

  • A sagittal plane divides the body into right and left portions.
  • A frontal plane (also called a coronal plane) separates the front (ventral) from the back (dorsal).
  • A transverse plane (or, horizontal plane) divides the animal into upper and lower portions.
  • Shown are the planes of a quadruped goat and a bipedal human.
  • The frontal plane divides the front and back, while the transverse plane divides the body into upper and lower portions.

• Balance and Determining Equilibrium

  • One is oriented in the horizontal plane, whereas the other two are oriented in the vertical plane.
  • The anterior and posterior vertical canals are oriented at approximately 45 degrees relative to the sagittal plane .
  • As the head rotates in a plane parallel to the semicircular canal, the fluid lags, deflecting the cupula in the direction opposite to the head movement.
  • The movement of two canals within a plane results in information about the direction in which the head is moving, and activation of all six canals can give a very precise indication of head movement in three dimensions.

• Movement at Synovial Joints

  • Protraction is the anterior movement of a bone in the horizontal plane.
  • (a)–(b) Flexion and extension motions are in the sagittal (anterior–posterior) plane of motion.
  • (e) Abduction and adduction are motions of the limbs, hand, fingers, or toes in the coronal (medial–lateral) plane of movement.

• Nephron: The Functional Unit of the Kidney

  • Each kidney is composed of over one million nephrons that dot the renal cortex, giving it a granular appearance when sectioned sagittally (from front to rear).

• Body Plans

  • Radial symmetry describes an animal with an up-and-down orientation: any plane cut along its longitudinal axis through the organism produces equal halves, but not a definite right or left side.
  • The goat also has an upper and lower component to it, but a plane cut from front to back separates the animal into definite right and left sides.

• Leaf Structure and Arrangment

  • Alternate leaves alternate on each side of the stem in a flat plane, and spiral leaves are arranged in a spiral along the stem.

• The Role of Species within Communities

  • These species have many ways of entering foreign environments, including through ship's ballast water: when planes take off, organisms can sometimes become stuck in the cargo area.
  • When the plane arrives in its destination, the organisms are now in a foreign environment.

• Lipid Molecules

  • If hydrogens are present in the same plane, it is referred to as a cis fat; if the hydrogen atoms are on two different planes, it is referred to as a trans fat.

• The Mitotic Phase and the G0 Phase

  • During metaphase, the "change phase," all the chromosomes are aligned in a plane called the metaphase plate, or the equatorial plane, midway between the two poles of the cell.