She Pointed Out A Couple Of Weird Things On Your Body That You Can Thank Evolution For
Have you ever wondered what sort of traits we, as a species, have lost due to evolution? Like the shape of our skulls or the change of our teeth.
Or even the food our bodies are able to digest without trouble. There are so many things that have changed in the evolution of the human body. And a lot of them the general population isn’t aware of.
One evolutionary anthropologist shared several traits that she called “evolutionary leftovers.” Dorsa Amir went to Twitter to share these traits and what they were originally used for.
“Did you know that the human body is full of evolutionary leftovers that no longer serve a purpose? These are called vestigial structures, and they’re fascinating,” she started.
“Put your hand flat on a surface and touch your pinky to your thumb. Do you see a raised band in your wrist? That there’s a vestigial muscle called the palmaris longus. It used to help you move around the trees. About 14% of us don’t even have this muscle anymore.”
If you’re like me, then as soon as you read the above line, you went to see if you had this muscle in your arm. My arm doesn’t have it; maybe that’s why I wasn’t great at climbing trees when I was little, haha.
There are so many things, uncountable amounts, that have gotten the human race to where it is today.
And it’s impossible to think about what it might look like in one thousand years or whether we’ll be here in that time.
“Check our your ear. Do you see this little bump? That’s called Darwin’s tubercle. It used to help you move your ears around,” she continued.
Photo 232750524 © Anastasiia Levchenko – Dreamstime.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
“Now that we have super-flexible necks, we don’t need these anymore. Here’s a more obvious one: the tailbone. This is the ghostly remainder of our lost tails, which were useful for balance & movement in trees. We still grow tails as embryos, but then attack and destroy them in the following weeks. Not the most efficient system.”
I don’t know about you, but I kind of wish we still had the ear thing. We could be so slick trying to hear conversations around us.
Turning your head to listen to someone is a little more obvious if you’re trying to overhear someone else’s conversation.
Have you ever seen a lizard blink with like a sideways eyelid? Well, apparently, humans used to have those, also.
“Ever wonder what this little pink thing in your eye is? This is the plica semilunaris. It used to be a third eyelid that would blink horizontally,” she said.
“You can see this in action in the eyes of many other animals. Oh, and you know how you sometimes get goosebumps when you’re cold or scared? That’s a vestigial reflex that used to raise body hair to make you appear bigger or trap an extra layer of heat for warmth.”
“Some people can actually do this on purpose. Another cool reflex is the palmar grasp reflex. If you place your finger on an infant’s palm (or feet), they will try to grasp it. Ancestral primate babies would have used this to grasp onto their parents for transport.”
Sometimes, we forget how long it has taken for humans to get where we are. The technological advancements started with simple tools and hunting equipment to the computers and vehicles that are used on a daily basis.
You can see the original posts here.
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