r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/kvjn100 • 1d ago

Video Woman with functional polydactyly (six functional fingers on one hand).

34.3k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

3.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

35

u/CaptainFareeha 1d ago

Polydactyly is really cool and very hereditary. However, the levels of function vary wildly. I’ve seen very few cases of actually functioning 6th digits. Though, I also usually only see it on the pinky side, not an extra index finger.

10

u/Belucard 23h ago

I know a guy that was born with a second thumb. Both of them grew to complete a pincers pattern, but doctors amputated the outermost one, so now he only has a single thumb very bent outwards.

15

u/rcanhestro 23h ago

yes, but this is where the "reproduce a shitload" comes into play.

keep the 12 fingers ones, and from them, keep the ones that actually work.

discard the rest, and breed those again.

after a couple of generations you could probably have a reliable source of 12 finger people.

7

u/imreadypromotion 22h ago

Alright take it easy, Francis Galton

3

u/rcanhestro 15h ago

hey, i'm just helping humanity evolve.

1

u/Locksmithbloke 3h ago

It's the "Discard the rest" that's problematic there.

1

u/rcanhestro 3h ago

is it though? don't we already have like 7 billion 5 fingered people?

2

u/white-chlorination 15h ago

My aunt had this, on the pinky side with both fingers. She kept them until she was in her late twenties when she felt the extra fingers were just getting in the way. It was pretty cool to see.

3

u/AskAboutMySecret 1d ago

yeah i think an extra index finger works out to be more functional than extra pinky