Muscle · Neck

Transverse arytenoid

Musculus arytenoideus transversus

The only unpaired muscle in the larynx — a single flat band stretched horizontally across the backs of both arytenoid cartilages, joining the left to the right. Because it bridges the two, contracting it slides them bodily towards each other, closing the rear part of the gap between the vocal folds where the cartilages themselves lie. That is the part the side-lying adductors cannot fully shut, so a whisper or a breathy voice is what a glottis left open at the back produces. It lies deep to the crossed slips of the oblique arytenoid.