Your pinkie toe , aside from when you stub the eldritch trivial guy , does n’t get the tending it deserve . In fact , we ’re willing to bet you do n’t know how many joints you have in yours , nor whether that ’s the same as most other human being .
Though it may search like a contender for the most senseless appendage on the human body , your minuscule pinky toes do their job and do them well . No longer used for clinging to trees , they and your other toe now play an important role inbalance and actuation . The pinky toe takes on more responsibility for this than its equally uncanny - looking friends .
“ We walk like a tripod fashion , where the big toe knuckle , the fifth toe knuckle and the heel , have a tripod walking ability , ” Dr Wenjay Sung , attending physician at White Memorial Medical Group toldPopSci . “ If you off one part of that tripod , you suffer balance . ”
So , how many knuckles do you have on that ever - so - important toe ? The answer , it turn out , is one or two . A2012 studylooked into the matter , after the team ’s own experience clashed with what they ’d read in the medical textbooks .
" It is a common intellect that the fifth toe has three bones with two interphalangeal joint , " the team write in their study . " However , our experience shows that a significant act have only two phalanges [ toe or finger’s breadth ivory ] with one interphalangeal join . "
The squad calculate at 606 patient who had had foot scans within an eight calendar week period at the Royal Liverpool University Hospitals NHS reliance for ft radiographs in 2010 . They then sat down with the patients ' radiograph and count the bones and joints .
They found 55.3 per centum of patients had three pearl with two joints , while 44.4 pct had two bones with one articulation .
" The presence of a two - phalangeal fifth toe was first described in 1492 by Leonardo da Vinci and later by a few others , " a team praising the authors write in aletter to the editor in chief .
" It is believe that this anatomic variant probably ensue from incomplete segmentation rather than as the consequence of phalangeal fusion and has been mark to be present in fetuses from as early as 12 hebdomad . This variant is an exclusively human phenomenon suggesting that it is a reply to bipedalism and that it would leave mainly from the failure of the distal interphalangeal joint to develop . "
The squad break down on to say that these two - boned toe can be strange in appearance , sometimes mistaken for a fracture . grant to the squad , the variant toe is less usual in Europe , and get a line at the highest rate in Japanese population .
