Two Tulane University undergraduates stumbled onto something rare in a cadaver lab: a muscle attachment in the pelvis that had not been identified before. The find came during routine anatomy work, but it quickly turned into a real medical curiosity with possible value for hip surgery, imaging, and future research.
Dominic Roy and Cooper Bruce were both 19 when they were volunteering in the cadaver lab with Dr. R. Shane Tubbs, a professor of neurosurgery and director of surgical anatomy at Tulane School of Medicine. The students were comparing the hip structures around the iliacus and psoas major, two muscles that play a major role in the lower body’s movement and stability.
While searching for the iliocapsularis, Roy noticed something that did not fit the usual picture. “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. He called Tubbs over, and the room suddenly shifted from normal dissection work to a full-blown anatomical mystery.
“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.”
The team dug through textbooks and research literature, but nothing matched what they were seeing. That gap mattered, because if no one had described it before, the muscle attachment could be a genuine new discovery rather than just an odd variation in an existing structure.
Bruce said the reaction was part excitement and part disbelief. “It was kind of like a reserved excitement,” he reflected. “Especially if the great R. Shane Tubbs can’t put his finger on exactly what it is.”
As more people gathered around the specimen, the moment got even bigger. Physicians from overseas and medical students helped document the find, and the team captured images as they examined the structure more closely. Roy described the scene as intense in the best way, saying, “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 discovery was later published in Clinical Anatomy, giving it a formal place in the medical literature. Tubbs, who also serves as co-editor-in-chief of Gray’s Anatomy, called the moment “serendipity” and said the students had found “a different part of a muscle that we had not looked at yet.” He added, “It’s deep in the pelvis and runs out to the front of your hip.”
What makes the find interesting is not just that it was overlooked, but that it may matter clinically. The muscle appears to connect into the front of the hip joint, which raises the possibility that it helps stabilize the psoas major or affects hip movement in ways doctors have not fully mapped yet.
Tubbs said the next question is whether the attachment shows up on MRI scans and whether it is linked to pain or other symptoms. If it does play a role in hip function, that could matter for people who undergo hip surgery or other minimally invasive procedures.
“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.”
He also said treatment could eventually go in different directions depending on the muscle’s behavior. Physical therapy might help if it is weak, while injections or even surgical decisions could come into play if it contributes to pain.
“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.
The muscle was not found in every cadaver, which fits a larger truth about anatomy: human bodies vary more than most people realize. Tubbs said that kind of variation is exactly why real cadavers still matter in training, especially when plastic models can make anatomy look too neat and uniform.
The team also found the same attachment in gorillas, hinting at a possible evolutionary connection. Bruce said that leaves an open question about why the muscle sticks around in some humans and not others, and whether lifestyle or physical demands could help explain it.
“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.”
For Roy and Bruce, the experience changed the way they look at medicine. Roy said the discovery reinforced the idea that anatomy is still full of surprises, and Tubbs agreed that the field is nowhere near finished.
“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.”
