There are also papillae without taste buds, which rarely occurs in other mammals ( Mistretta and Baum, 1984). On 320 fungiform papillae, an average of about 3.5 taste buds per papilla has been estimated, for a total of 1120 fungiform taste buds ( Miller and Reedy, 1990a, b) ( Table 1). There are about 30 large fungiform papillae in the posteromedial region, for an estimated total of about 320 fungiform papillae per tongue ( Miller and Reedy, 1990b Shahbake et al., 2005). There are about 145 gustatory (fungiform) papillae per lateral half of the tongue, with about 30 papillae per cm 2 on the tip, but only about 3 papillae per cm 2 on the posterolateral area.

Taste buds have been quantified in terms of tongue surface areas, referred to as “taste bud density”, or number of taste buds per cm 2 of tongue surface. Since smaller fungiform papillae on the margin (diameter < 0.5 mm) occasionally have projections on their apices like small fila on filiform papillae, they are not easily to be distinguished from filiform papillae. Following the surface in a posterior direction from the midline of the tip toward the back of the tongue, fungiform papillae become progressively larger in size. The number of taste buds differs among fungiform papillae, and there are large interindividual variations in fungiform taste bud distribution ( Segovia et al., 2002). This region contains about 30 cm 2 of surface area, and the fungiform papillae are spread unevenly over it. The anterior portion of the tongue extends from the line of vallate papillae to the tongue tip ( Fig. 2C). Notwithstanding its convenient location, the fungiform taste bud population has been difficult to quantify since fungiform papillae vary in appearance and are distributed over a large area of tongue surface. Martin Witt, in The Senses: A Comprehensive Reference (Second Edition), 2020 3.05.4.2.3.3 Fungiform Papillaeįungiform papillae can be easily identified as pink elevations about 0.5 mm in diameter on the anterior portion of the living human tongue.

Circumvallate papillae definition