Sublingual gland at a glance
- What it is
- The sublingual gland is the smallest of the three major salivary glands.
- Location
- It lies in the floor of the mouth beneath the tongue, above the mylohyoid muscle and under the sublingual fold.
- Function
- It secretes mostly mucous saliva through many small ducts.
- Body system
- Digestive · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA59805 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Parasympathetic secretomotor fibres come from the facial nerve via the chorda tympani and submandibular ganglion.
- It makes about 3 to 5 percent of saliva.
Structures next to the sublingual gland
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Lower second secondary premolar tooth · digestive
- Lower first secondary premolar tooth · digestive
- Lower first secondary molar tooth · digestive
- Mylohyoid · muscular
- Gingiva of lower jaw · digestive
- Lower secondary canine tooth · digestive
- Genioglossus · muscular
- Tongue · digestive
- Lower lateral secondary incisor tooth · digestive
- Hyoglossus · muscular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Sublingual gland (FMA59805). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
- OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §23.1 Overview of the Digestive System. Rice University, 2022.
- Mitsuhashi N. et al. (2009). BodyParts3D: 3D structure database for anatomical concepts. Nucleic Acids Research 37, D782–D785. Data © The Database Center for Life Science, CC BY 4.0.
Explore the whole body in the interactive 3D human anatomy model, or browse the A–Z list of human structures.