The Toledo Blade: Darin Croft, professor of anatomy, explained why adults have nearly 100 fewer bones than when they were born. “People are surprised that babies have more bones and adults have fewer,” he said. “It's the cartilage that really grows. The bones can grow, but they can only grow on the outside, and cartilage, it can expand also from the middle, and that's what are informally called growth plates.”
