[1] It rests on the oval window, to which it is connected by an annular ligament and articulates with the incus, or anvil through the incudostapedial joint.

The central cavity of the stapes, the obturator foramen, is due to the presence embryologically of the stapedial artery, which usually regresses in humans during normal development.

In fish, the homologous bone is called the hyomandibular, and is part of the gill arch supporting either the spiracle or the jaw, depending on the species.

[7][10] : 254–262 The stapes is commonly described as having been discovered by the professor Giovanni Filippo Ingrassia in 1546 at the University of Naples,[13] although this remains the nature of some controversy, as Ingrassia's description was published posthumously in his 1603 anatomical commentary In Galeni librum de ossibus doctissima et expectatissima commentaria.

Spanish anatomist Pedro Jimeno is first to have been credited with a published description, in Dialogus de re medica (1549).