Noyo Center Talks Science:
Bewildered By Betty Blue’s Big Basihyal Bone
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Guest Presenter: Dr. Joy Reidenberg
The hyoid (including basihyal, thyrohyal, and stylohyal elements) is a throat bone usually associated with swallowing, breathing, and vocalizing. You can feel it rise and fall in your own throat during a swallow, just above the Adam’s Apple. It is an important regulator of these functions because of its position at the intersection of the respiratory and digestive pathways. Although this bone is very small in humans, it is enormous in whales — even in proportion to their huge body lengths. To find out why, come to this talk! I will focus on its many functions in whales (including blue whales), including not only swallowing, breathing, and vocalizing, but a surprising additional function in locomotion.
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Joy S. Reidenberg, Ph.D. is a comparative anatomist, specializing in comparative anatomy. She is a Professor in the Center for Anatomy and Functional Morphology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY, USA. Her degrees are from Cornell University (B.A. 1983) and Mount Sinai’s Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences (M.Phil. 1986, Ph.D. 1988). Dr. Reidenberg also held appointments as Guest Investigator at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Associate Scientist at National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution). She is a Fellow of the American Association for Anatomy, and an inaugural Fellow of the Society for Marine Mammalogy.