Cardassian Neck Ridges

[BJ Wagner]

Been rewatching DS9 recently and started to wonder about those magnificent Cardassian neck ridges. Do you think they're actual vertebra or simply scales?

I don't remember seeing a single, central spine on the Cardassians, so maybe they have one one each side?

 

[charliefox]

I think they are vertebra since in Soldiers Of The Empire Odo calls them neck bones. It wouldn't make sense to call them that if they were scales.

 

[Boomer359]

They may be bones, but they don't appear to be spinal or serve any other biologically crucial function. If I recall correctly, Bashir shot Garrack through one of his kneck ridges in Our Man Bashir without much concern. I think Bashir even described it as being just a flesh wound. Also consider Seska, who had them removed entirely when she underwent surgical alterations to appear Bajoran, or Kira, who had them added when the Obsidian Order tried to convince her and Legate Ghemor that Kira was his long lost daughter. If the ridges were a necessary component of Cardassian anatomy, they certainly weren't treated as such on screen.

 

[Tosk]

I think they are vertebra since in Soldiers Of The Empire Odo calls them neck bones.

Being bones doesn't make them vertebrae.

Also consider Seska, who had them removed entirely when she underwent surgical alterations to appear Bajoran

As did Dukat.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Probably some vestigial piece of anatomy that no longer serves a purpose.

 

[Tosk]

Or they do serve a purpose but can be removed without severely impacting their life. Like human ears.

 

[In Thy Image]

Well if it helps in "Empok nor" they show a decomposed Cardassian body, and neck ridges are still there:

The rest of the body is just a skeleton, so the ridges might be bones I guess:

 

[Sophie74656]

I always thought they were something like cartilage

 

[UnknownSample]

Nice diverting question to mull over. Maybe they're extra vertebrae in case one pops out of your back, just snap a new one in. Like a couple extra buttons coming with a suit.

 

[Tosk]

The rest of the body is just a skeleton, so the ridges might be bones I guess:

The pictures you posted clearly show flesh still on the corpse.

It looks kind of like maybe the organs decomposing also destroyed the surrounding tissue and clothing, leaving the head and shoulders fairly intact.

 

[Zonker]

They're secondary sex characteristics. Showing off lots of neck is equivalent to human cleavage.

 

[The_Baroness]

I think they are vertebra since in Soldiers Of The Empire Odo calls them neck bones. It wouldn't make sense to call them that if they were scales.

Well...Odo said that what the Klingons were wearing were cardasian neck bones, - but I took this as being the bones that actually form the vertebrae, not the scales, which is all I think the ridges are.

 

[In Thy Image]

The pictures you posted clearly show flesh still on the corpse.

It looks kind of like maybe the organs decomposing also destroyed the surrounding tissue and clothing, leaving the head and shoulders fairly intact.

Yes, I was wondering if that was supposed to be flesh or not. The bodies look partly mummified. Damn it, Jim, I'm a historian not a xenopathologist

 

[BJ Wagner]

Too bad we don't know anyone who could ask Mark Alamo or Andrew J. Robinson. I bet they had some theories about Cardassian biology.

 

[Six of Twelve]

Or they do serve a purpose but can be removed without severely impacting their life. Like human ears.

I think they're a redundant, auxiliary set of vertebrae. Not needed to survive, but there, ready to take over if the back vertebrae are irreparably damaged

 

[Marie1]

In the novels I thought they were considered vertebrae (I think Andrew J. Robinson wrote one of the books?) as a sort of double spine but I can't remember where I read it. I'm not exactly clear on how that would work.

 

[TheSeeker]

It would be nice if we could get Michael Westmore's opinion on it. I found a YouTube video of him discussing Cardassian makeup but he didn't say anything about the neck ridges.

 

[elamigodemiamiga]

Could be cartilage. or may hardened skin.

 

[matthunter]

The novels also suggested that hanging was used on Cardassia as a particularly painful form of execution, since the neck bones would mean no quick death via breaking the neck as in humans, but slow strangulation.

 

[Marie1]

Well, they're definitely covered in thick scales, but I also found this:
"I created a row of bony ridges," said Westmore, "that went down the sides of the neck and flared out onto the shoulder tips, giving a strange, menacing appearance, like a praying mantis or a king cobra." (Star Trek: Costumes: Five Decades of Fashion from the Final Frontier, p. 200)
So I think they're meant to be bone?