Palm (hand)

Hand
Palmar and dorsal aspects of human right hand
X-ray of human hand
Details
Vein	dorsal venous network of hand
Nerve	Ulnar, median, radial nerves
Identifiers
Latin	Manus
MeSH	A01.378.800.667
TA	A01.1.00.025
FMA	9712
Anatomical terminology []

A hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered appendage located at the end of the forearm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs. A few other vertebrates such as the koala (which has two opposable thumbs on each "hand" and fingerprints remarkably similar to human fingerprints) are often described as having "hands" instead of paws on their front limbs. The raccoon is usually described as having "hands" though opposable thumbs are lacking.

Some evolutionary anatomists use the term hand to refer to the appendage of digits on the forelimb more generally — for example, in the context of whether the three digits of the bird hand involved the same homologous loss of two digits as in the dinosaur hand.

The human hand normally has five digits: four fingers plus one thumb. In some languages, the human hand is said to have five fingers, including the thumb as one of the fingers. It has 27 bones, not including the sesamoid bone, the number of which varies between people, 14 of which are the phalanges (proximal, intermediate and distal) of the fingers and thumb. The metacarpal bones connect the fingers and the carpal bones of the wrist. Each human hand has five metacarpals and eight carpal bones.