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Top facts
Many creatures, like humans, have a frame of bones inside their bodies to help support them.
The human skeleton is made up of 206 bones that grow over time.
The longest bone in your body is the thigh bone (scientific name: femur). The smallest bone is one inside the ear called the stirrup.
Bones are connected to other bones at joints. There are many different types of joints, including:
fixed joints (like in the skull, which consists of many bones),
hinged joints (such as in the fingers and toes), and
ball-and-socket joints (such as the shoulders and hips).
Fixed joints allow very little movement, except for growth. Hinged joints allow you to bend and straighten the joint, but not move it from side-to-side. Ball-and-socket joints allow much more movement in all directions.
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As well as protecting your soft, internal organs, bones are the framework for your muscles: muscles are attached to bones, and it is a muscle pulling on a bone that makes you move.
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