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Two undergraduate students at Tulane University in New Orleans discovered an anatomical feature that even their professor couldn’t initially identify.
Dominic Roy and Cooper Bruce were both 19-year-old college sophomores at the time of the finding in 2024.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Roy said it had been an ordinary day volunteering in the cadaver lab with R. Shane Tubbs, Ph.D., professor of neurosurgery and director of surgical anatomy at Tulane School of Medicine.
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The students were dissecting several specimens’ hips to compare where the iliacus joins the psoas major, a muscle that runs from the lower back through the pelvis to the upper thigh.
Front view of a woman’s thigh and knee muscles with anatomical labels. (iStock)
When looking for a particular muscle, the iliocapsularis, which sits laterally in the hip, Roy found something else instead.
“I spotted a similar looking muscle that was on the other side of the Iliac fascia, close to the inguinal region of the pelvis,” he said.
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“I called Dr. Tubbs over and asked, ‘What is this?’ We didn’t talk about this in our morning meetings … and I think he was as stumped as me.”
After searching through extensive literature and textbooks to see if the muscle had been previously identified, the team came up short, which suggested it was a new discovery.
The new muscle attachment discovered by Tulane undergrad students is illustrated in a diagram. (Tulane University/iStock)
“It was kind of like a reserved excitement,” Bruce reflected. “Especially if the great R. Shane Tubbs can’t put his finger on exactly what it is.”
Physicians from overseas and rising medical school students also assisted with the discovery.
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“Everyone kind of huddled around the same specimen and we started draping and doing the pictures … I was in awe,” Roy said. “I was like, ‘Oh, wow, this is happening so quick.’ It was seriously something special.”
The findings were recently published in the journal Clinical Anatomy.
Tulane students Dominic Roy (left) and Cooper Bruce made a novel discovery while volunteering in the cadaver lab. (Dominic Roy)
Tubbs, who is also a co-editor-in-chief of the human anatomy reference textbook Gray’s Anatomy, said Roy and Bruce’s discovery was “serendipity.”
“[They] identified a different part of a muscle that we had not looked at yet,” he confirmed to Fox News Digital. “It’s deep in the pelvis and runs out to the front of your hip.”
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Potential medical uses
Although the team has not yet determined the muscle’s function, clues suggest it may help stabilize the psoas major, a large muscle involved in bending the hip.
The next step is to determine whether MRI scans can reveal the muscle attachment, allowing researchers to study whether its presence is linked to more or fewer symptoms, according to the doctor.
Dr. Tubbs (pictured here) said his lab uses anatomical donors for education and research to identify clinical problems. (Tulane University)
“More research is needed for us to better elucidate what it does,” Tubbs said. “Can you see it on imaging? Does it contribute to patients’ problems? But I think this is the first step in identifying something.”
As minimally invasive procedures become more common, Tubbs said awareness of this small muscle could improve care, particularly for patients undergoing hip surgery.
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“They might use physical therapy to help rehab the muscle, because we did find that the fibers of this attachment directly attach into the front of the hip joint,” he added. “So it may be that the muscle’s weak and causes symptoms, so you could rehab it.”
Doctors could also use injections to weaken the new muscle if overactivity causes pain or other symptoms.
The muscle discovery could help improve future surgeries and hip pain, the professor said. (iStock)
“Surgeons are replacing hips and doing hip surgery on a daily basis, so if they see the muscle, potentially they could correlate the symptoms of the patient and whether or not maybe cutting the muscle would help the patient,” Tubbs said.
Variations in anatomy
This muscle was not found in every cadaver, the researchers noted, as each human body is different.
“When you look beneath the layers of the skin, human beings have lots of variation,” Tubbs said. “I tell our students that no two of you are built the same inside or out.”
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The researchers found the same muscle attachment in gorillas, suggesting a possible evolutionary link.
Bruce said this raises the question of why this muscle would still be present in some humans and not others.
Tulane University School of Medicine is shown in New Orleans on Feb. 12, 2022. (iStock)
“Just by the nature of working with cadavers and not knowing a deep personal history of each individual … maybe this individual played soccer, or this person did a lot of rock climbing,” he said.
“They might’ve had more need for this attachment … It’s difficult to make that connection.”
Lessons beyond textbooks
Working with real cadavers has made a big difference in shaping future doctors, Tubbs shared, as the synthetic models that are now circulating in university labs are cookie-cutter.
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“Many people have the notion … that the entire form of the human has been worked out, and we know all the different parts. And they think we’ve known that for hundreds of years,” he said. “But in actuality, people are still discovering things about human anatomy.”
Medical students “need to experience that variation” and have the hands-on experience before dealing with real patients, Roy commented.
Dr. Shane Tubbs poses in his office in the Murphy Building on Tulane’s Downtown campus on March 27, 2026. (Kenny Lass / Tulane University)
Although the new muscle attachment will have to be studied across geographic regions, Tubbs said he expects the students’ discovery will eventually be added to anatomical textbooks.
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The discovery inspired the students, now seniors, to further explore a career in medicine. Roy said he plans to enter a master’s program in anatomy.
“The bottom line is that anatomical discovery doesn’t end when a textbook is published … and discovery in the anatomical sciences continues on, even in the year 2026.”