A case report of variant insertion of plantaris muscle and its morphological and clinical implications

Plantaris is a small muscle of posterior compartment of the leg. Plantaris is considered as one of the vestigial muscles of the body with least functional significance and immense clinical importance. There are very few reports in the literature about the plantaris muscle such as duplicated bellies, tendons and abnormal attachment. Here we present a very rare case of absence of plantaris tendon. The muscle origin was normal but the muscle belly ended in the form of fascia which was used with the soleus muscle, the tendon of plantaris found to be absent. Absence of the plantaris tendon will not cause any functional deficits.