Ligament · Neck

Stylohyoid ligament

Ligamentum stylohyoideum

A slender fibrous cord slung from the tip of the styloid process — the thin spike of bone behind the ear — down and forward to the lesser horn of the hyoid, the small floating bone in the front of the throat. Like the sphenomandibular ligament it is the fibrous remnant of a pharyngeal arch cartilage, though of a different arch: this one derives from the cartilage of the second arch, the sphenomandibular from that of the first. Its work is suspension: it is one of the upward anchors that hold the hyoid in place, which is what gives the tongue and swallowing muscles below it something fixed to pull against. It is sometimes partly ossified along its length, effectively lengthening the styloid process.