Elastic Cartilage
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Elastic cartilage is so named because of the large amount of elastic fibers found in the tissue. Elastic fibers give the tissue elasticity and allow the tissue to recoil in response to stretching or stress. Elastic cartilage is found in the pinna of the ear and the epiglottis. Grab your ear, bend it and then release it. Your ear springs back to its original position. It does this because the elastic cartilage in the ear is resilient and recoils. If your ear contained hyaline or fibrocartilage it would not be nearly as flexible or resilient. You could actually break your ear.
Under the microscope elastic cartilage looks very different from hyaline cartilage. Chondrocytes and lacunae are still present but the matrix contains darkly staining elastic fibers. These fibers can be scattered around the tissue or they can be very densely arranged in the tissue.
