why do we have toes? What’s the point of them exactly?
In: Biology
So we have our toes for a couple of reason;
Balance plays a big part in what we use them for from day to day. As we haven’t got much need for them beyond that anymore.
As primates we used them similar to how moneys and apes use there’s nowadays, especially as another pair of hands and to help grip.
While living in trees, being able to grasp onto branches with your toes is extremely useful. See [how the foot of a chimp looks like](https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/535109/view/chimpanzee-foot), for example.
After we moved down from the trees and stared walking upright, the need for grip disappeared, but the toes adapted to help us with walking. It’s easier to balance when you have toes to work with, and you can easily tell how you start engaging your toes more as you go from walking to running.
(Incidentally, your pinky toe is almost irrelevant for that purpose since your other toes can do its work, so it’s entirely possible that evolution ends up giving us four foes in each foot down the line.)
We are evolved from tree climbing creatures that used feet like hands while climbing, similar to tree monkeys today.
As our ancestors moved to grasslands and began walking and running upright our toes became part of how we walk and run, and more so how we balance.
I almost lost 4 toes in a motorcycle accident and ended up having surgery to reattach the tendons in them. It took a few years for feeling to return to my toes and it changed my walking and running strides.
what else are you going to stub ?
They’re kind of an evolutionary leftover. If humans manage to not go extinct first, maybe in another million years or so our feet will just be toe-less, with the bones for them still there but hidden under layers of skin.
Ask someone who has no toes, like a friend of mine a while ago.
Though they appear relatively useless, they are basically your primary balance control on your foot. The flat of your foot is no good for actually walking, it’s just a large leg with a single articulation at the ankle, and you don’t want to walk on your ankles. The toes provide a lot of the balance information, as well as make the foot grip the floor, especially if it’s uneven, and also provide a ton of assistance when you’re walking rather than standing. Watch any close-up video of someone’s foot when they walk, male or female, and you’ll see that you spend an awful lot of time on your toes and with toes propelling you that last few inches.
When running, they become even more important.
Someone without toes will tell you – they can be almost wheelchair bound and find it very difficult to walk. Standing is not so bad, but walking is problematic. It’s one of the biggest issues with prosthetic legs – it’s not the leg or the foot that matters – we had “peg-leg” prosthetics for centuries, if not millennia. But you’re always going to struggle because the toes are either not assisting, or they do not flex out of the way on the stride and either catch (like constantly stubbing your toe) or trip you.
Toes are as important to the foot as fingers are to the hand, their smaller size doesn’t make them any less important.
Raise your toes and then try to walk without your toes touching the floor. Unless you waddle (in the classic “waiting for my nail polish to dry” walk) it feels very wrong and becomes tiring.
In fact, women can learn to run in high-heels where effectively *ONLY* their toes are touching the floor. But trying to run where your toes don’t touch the floor at all is actually really difficult.
I don’t know, but I just gave mine a good wiggle just in case they decide to declare them redundant and take them away.
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