Cat Skeleton Diagram Not Labeled – Standing Cat, Tail Up

All 27 bones on the diagram

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Front half 16

Skull The bones of the head. A cat has a short face, and each eye sits in a large socket.
Mandible The lower jaw, made of two halves. It holds the lower teeth and hinges on the skull.
Canine teeth One large, sharply pointed, slightly curved tooth on each side of each jaw, set apart from the small front teeth.
Cervical vertebrae The seven vertebrae of the neck. They carry no ribs.
Thoracic vertebrae The thirteen vertebrae of the chest. Each one carries a pair of ribs.
Ribs Thirteen pairs. The first nine pairs are joined to the breastbone by cartilage.
Sternum The breastbone: a chain of eight small bones along the underside of the chest.
Scapula The shoulder blade: a flat, three-cornered bone with a ridge, the spine, down its outer side.
Clavicle The collarbone. In a cat it is a small, slender, curved rod held in the muscles in front of the shoulder.
Humerus The bone of the upper foreleg, from the shoulder blade to the elbow.
Radius The front bone of the forearm, from the elbow to the wrist.
Ulna The rear bone of the forearm. Its top end sticks up behind the elbow.
Carpals The small bones of the wrist, in two rows. A cat stands with its wrist off the ground.
Metacarpals Five bones between the wrist and the toes: four long ones and a short one for the first toe.
Phalanges The toe bones. A cat walks on its toes.
Distal phalanges The last bone of each toe, shaped to carry the claw. A springy ligament keeps it rolled back over the bone behind it, so the claw stays off the ground.

Rear half 11

Lumbar vertebrae The seven vertebrae of the loins. They are larger and longer than the chest vertebrae.
Sacrum Three vertebrae that join into one bone as the cat grows up. It holds the two hip bones.
Caudal vertebrae The vertebrae of the tail: twenty or so, and fewer in short-tailed cats. They carry no ribs.
Pelvis Each hip bone is three bones joined into one: the ilium, the ischium and the pubis.
Femur The thigh bone, from the hip joint to the knee.
Patella The kneecap: a small, flat bone that covers the front of the knee joint.
Tibia The larger of the two bones of the lower leg.
Fibula The much more slender bone of the lower leg, on the outer side of the tibia.
Tarsals The seven bones of the ankle, which a cat carries off the ground.
Calcaneus The heel bone, the longest of the tarsals.
Metatarsals Four long bones between the ankle and the toes, with only a stub for the first toe.

How this list was compiled: Every bone name, count and detail line was checked on 2026-09-30, for facts only and with nothing copied: (1) J. Reighard and H. S. Jennings, Anatomy of the Cat, 1901, The Skeleton of the Cat, read in the Internet Archive scan at https://archive.org/details/anatomyofcat00reig; (2) St. George Mivart, The Cat, 1881, https://archive.org/details/catintroductiont00miva; (3) Wikipedia, Cat anatomy; (4) A. Chauveau, The Comparative Anatomy of the Domesticated Animals, 1873, https://archive.org/details/comparativeanato00chaurich. A name or count that only one source gives is left out of the parts. Licence: own work

The drawing: Drawn for this site on 2026-09-30 from plain shapes. Own original schematic drawing; nothing traced or copied. Licence: own work

How it works

A cat skeleton diagram, not labeled: one standing cat seen from its left side, with the skeleton drawn inside the outline of the body and the tail carried up. Twenty-seven bones are to be named, and nineteen of them have a line.

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The names to write in

Head, spine and chest: skull, mandible, canine teeth, cervical, thoracic, lumbar and caudal vertebrae, sacrum, ribs, sternum. Front leg: scapula, clavicle, humerus, radius, ulna, carpals, metacarpals, phalanges, distal phalanges. Hind leg: pelvis, femur, patella, tibia, fibula, tarsals, calcaneus, metatarsals.

Seven lines on one front leg

The clavicle line starts at the front of the shoulder joint. Below the elbow, the radius line runs toward the head and the ulna line toward the tail. Then come the carpals, the metacarpals and two lines at the paw: phalanges to the rear, distal phalanges to the front.

Eight bones have no line and take their name on the bone: skull, mandible, scapula, humerus, ribs, pelvis, femur and tibia.
The line that leaves the chest floor behind the elbow is for the sternum, not for a rib.
The tail has one line, part of the way up. It stands for all the caudal vertebrae.

Questions and answers

Is a cat skeleton the same as a dog skeleton?

On paper, nearly. Twenty-five of the names on this sheet are also on the blank dog skeleton. The cat sheet adds the clavicle and the distal phalanges, and the dog sheet has the dewclaw instead.

What are the distal phalanges on a cat?

The last bone of each toe. Each one ends in a plate shaped like a bird's beak, and that plate supports the claw. On this sheet their line stops at the very tip of the front paw.

Which bones are left off the cat skeleton diagram?

The hyoid, the atlas and axis by name, the ear bones and the small sesamoid bones. In a side view of the whole cat each is hidden or too small to mark. The first toe is drawn but takes no name.

Is there an answer key for the unlabeled cat skeleton?

Yes. The key is the same cat with all twenty-seven names on it. It prints the textbook names: mandible for the lower jaw, caudal vertebrae for the tail bones and calcaneus for the heel bone.