Never. We're probably stuck with our appendix, pinky toes, tailbone and just about all of our other evolutionary holdovers. Wisdom teeth may eventually go, but major changes like losing an appendage (teeth included) take millions and millions of years — who knows if humans will even be around that long.
And even though they may not be able to grip and hang on like our fingers, our toes are super important to our everyday lives. Our toes provide balance and support while walking. When we walk, our toes stay on the ground 75% of the time. During that time, they are exerting pressure to help us walk correctly.
We have pinkies because our DNA tells our bodies to make five fingers including the pinky. Our DNA can't tell whether or not we are using our pinky. So our kids' pinkies won't be shorter just because we didn't use ours. In other words, not using a pinky won't alter our DNA to make the next generation's pinkies smaller.
Humans' big toes were the last part of us to evolve – because our ancestors swung from trees using their feet like apes, a new study suggests. As our early relatives began to walk on two legs, they would also have spent much of their time in trees, using their feet to grasp branches.
Cheesewright suggested that changes in our environment and diet will cause us all to decline in size – and smaller people don't need big feet. “If we get smaller, we'll likely see the average shoe size reduce by two or three sizes in line with the rest of our bodies,” he said.
Never. We're probably stuck with our appendix, pinky toes, tailbone and just about all of our other evolutionary holdovers. Wisdom teeth may eventually go, but major changes like losing an appendage (teeth included) take millions and millions of years — who knows if humans will even be around that long.
The way we use our feet is changing. These days, we spend far more time sitting than running. François Allart, the co-founder of Canada's first school of podiatric medicine, hypothesizes that if our culture becomes even more sedentary, the human foot will become weaker and flatter. We might even lose a toe.
Human feet have evolved uniquely among primates, losing an opposable first digit in favor of a pronounced arch to enhance our ability to walk and run with an upright posture.
The pinky toe provides balance and propulsion while walking. When it is injured or damaged due to an accident, the propulsion is restricted, leading to an affected gait. It is always important to wear the proper shoes, as the wrong ones can potentially impact your little toe.
Celtic feet: the luck of the Irish
Their toe shape origin is a mix of cultures too. The Celtic foot shape is a combination of Germanic toes (one big toe, and all other toes of the same length) and a pronounced second digit like the Greeks, with descending toe size from the third toe onwards.
The short answer is we have evolved to have nails because they help us pick things up (like food), pick things off (like bugs), and hold tightly onto things. Early humans who had these type of nails (instead of claws) tended to live long enough to have babies and pass on the fingernails gene to their kids.
The common ancestors of all primates evolved an opposable thumb that helped them grasp branches. As the grasping hand evolved, claws disappeared. Today, most primates instead have flat fingernails and larger fingertip pads, which help them to hold on.
“Toenails are vestigial, and at one time in our ancestral tree they were necessary for defense, digging, climbing, and were used as tools,” Rothschild says. “Fingernails have some practical use in everyday life, such as peeling fruit or scratching, but we don't use toenails anymore.
Ancient Human Ancestors Had Extra-Long Feet
Scientists know from footprints found preserved in volcanic ash in Latoli, Tanzania, that ancient hominins practiced heel-to-toe walking as early as 3.6 million years ago. Our feet have changed over the years, however.
Unlike fingers, why are we unable to individually control our toes? The difference between the movements of the hand and feet has anatomical and developmental reasons. Anatomically, the muscles controlling the finger movements have separate bellies to individually move them.
The main function of your toes is to provide posture and balance, support our body weight, and propulsion during the gait cycle. Not only do your toes help thrust your body forward when you walk, they actually help increase the length of your stride allowing you to run faster.
Losing one or more toes does not necessarily mean that you won't be able to walk or even run again. However, it will adversely affect your balance and stability, and potentially change your walking biomechanics.
The main function of the big toe is to direct body weight through the foot in the direction of travel (Yavuz et al., 2009). Stoneham et al (2018) recently demonstrated the association between big toe valgus (inward squash of big toe towards other toes) and foot pronation while running barefoot.
Following the transition from Australopithecus to Homo, toes decreased in length and curvature, the ankle and corresponding musculature reduced in size, and full foot arches emerged. The big toe shifted to align with the other toes rather than curving inward enabling a more efficient push-off for bipedalism.
Over the course of the human career the human foot has evolved an elaborate plantar aponeurosis, strong plantar ligaments, longitudinal arches, an enlarged musculus flexor accessorius, an adducted (non-opposable) hallux, a remodeled calcaneocuboid joint, a long tarsus, and shortened toes (II to V).
However, hands and feet are serially homologous structures that share virtually identical developmental blueprints, raising the possibility that digital proportions coevolved in human hands and feet because of underlying developmental linkages that increase phenotypic covariation between them.
For instance, bacteria can reproduce within 20 minutes, so their evolution can be watched by scientists over the course of a few days. All creatures are always evolving. There is no way to stop evolution. Humans are still evolving.
Climate change could lead to humans growing webbed hands and feet and developing gills to adapt to living underwater, according to an academic. Dr Matthew Skinner, a paleoanthropologist, believes humans would become fishlike to colonise aquatic communities, or 'water worlds', if sea levels rise.
Webbed fingers and toes
A rare condition in humans known as 'syndactyly' is the fusion of one or more digits on the hands or feet. Sometimes it is just the skin that is joined together, and sometimes the bones themselves are fused.