polymelia
Sign in to savePolymelia is a birth defect in which an affected individual has more than the usual number of limbs. It is a type of dysmelia. In humans and most land-dwelling vertebrates, this means having five or more limbs. The extra limb is most commonly shrunken or deformed. The term is from Greek πολυ- "many", μέλεα "limbs".
Key facts
- Medical condition.name
- Polymelia
- Medical condition.synonyms
- Hydra syndrome
- Medical condition.image
- Radiograph of a child with polymelia.jpg
- Medical condition.caption
- Radiograph of a human child with polymelia
- Medical condition.field
- Medical genetics
via Wikipedia infobox
~8 min read
Encyclopedic overview
10 sectionsContents
- Origin
- Notable cases
- Humans
- Other animals
- In mythology
- In popular culture
- See also
- References
- Sources
- External links
Polymelia is a birth defect in which an affected individual has more than the usual number of limbs. It is a type of dysmelia. In humans and most land-dwelling vertebrates, this means having five or more limbs. The extra limb is most commonly shrunken or deformed. The term is from Greek πολυ- "many", μέλεα "limbs".
Sometimes an embryo started as conjoined twins, but one twin degenerated completely except for one or more limbs, which end up attached to the other twin.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “polymelia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.