Answer:
Walking along a beach, you find a section of an adult gray whale's vertebral column with three vertebrae. You saw one of the vertebra in half, revealing a hard outer layer of compact bone forming the wall, and a network of spongy bone with trabeculae in the center.
Explanation:
- The harder structures of a skeleton are made by the compact bone. Compact bones are dense and rigid. They are non-porous.
- Spongy bones are porous bones which are covered by the compact bones as they themselves are not hard. They are also known as cancellous bones.
- Trabeculae are thin plates which give a spongy structure to the spongy bones. The trabeculae are present in the center of the spongy bones.
