Lacrimal bone facts for kids

Bone: Lacrimal bone
Where the lacrimal bone is (shown in green).
Medial wall of the orbit. Lacrimal bone is in yellow.
Latin	os lacrimale
Gray's	subject #39 164

The lacrimal bone is a tiny bone in your face. It's about the size of your pinky fingernail! You can find it at the front of the inside wall of your eye socket. Even though it's small, this bone is very important for how your eyes work, especially when you cry.

Where is the Lacrimal Bone?

The lacrimal bone is one of the smallest bones in your skull. It's a thin, fragile bone that helps form part of your eye socket. It sits right behind the front part of your upper jaw bone. It also connects to other bones around your eye, like the frontal bone (your forehead bone) and the ethmoid bone (a bone deep inside your skull).

What Does the Lacrimal Bone Do?

This little bone has a big job when it comes to your tears! The lacrimal bone is a key part of your tear drainage system. It has a special groove, or channel, that helps tears flow away from your eye.

How Tears Drain

When you blink, your eyelids spread tears across your eye to keep it clean and moist. These tears then gather in the inner corner of your eye. From there, they drain into a small sac called the lacrimal sac. This sac is partly surrounded by the lacrimal bone.

After the tears enter the lacrimal sac, they travel down a tube called the nasolacrimal duct. This duct goes from your eye area right into your nose. This is why your nose often gets runny when you cry a lot! The lacrimal bone helps protect this important tear drainage pathway.

Images for kids

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  Position of the lacrimal bones (shown in green). Animation.

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  Animation. Some bones are removed to show the position of the lacrimal bones (shown in green).

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  Orbital bones. Lacrimal bone shown in green.

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  A left lacrimal bone. Enlarged. Animation.

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  Lacrimal bone

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  Lacrimal bone

See also

In Spanish: Hueso lagrimal para niños