At either posterior angle of the hard palate

Hard palate

The hard palate is a thin horizontal bony plate of the skull, located in the roof of the mouth. It spans the arch formed by the upper teeth.It is formed by the palatine process of the maxilla and horizontal plate of palatine bone....

 is the greater palatine foramen, for the transmission of the descending palatine vessels and anterior palatine nerve; and running anteriorly (forward) and medially (towards the center-line) from it is a groove, for the same vessels and nerve.

Variations

The greater palatine foramen (GPF) is related to the upper 3rd molar tooth in most of the skulls (55%), 2nd molar in (12%), between the 2nd & 3rd molar in (19%) and retromolar in (14%). The shape of the foramen is elongated antero-posteriorly; however, an unusually crescent shaped foramen is rare.http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/akramjfr/Gpalatine_foramen.html&date=2009-10-25+12:09:56