They provide the epaxial and hypaxial muscles of the neck, the pharyngeal and laryngeal muscles that develop in the caudal branchial arches and the musculature of the tongue. Despite their localisation in the head, myogenic precursors from occipital somites essentially follow the trunk programmes (E. H. Walters and S. D., unpublished). during evolution, have been secondarily incorporated into the head (Gans and Northcutt, 1983)

EHDAA2 has both 'head somite' and 'head somite group', with part_of and develops_from for latter

uberon

cranial somite

UBERON:0005594

in humans this includes somites 1-4

• future diaphragm
• tongue muscle