I got to thinking. Scary, I know! What occurred to me is that being able to move your toes independently, curling your tongue, and wiggling your ears are actually primitive abilities.

First, if you can, watch this:

If you can’t or don’t want to watch the video: lie your arms flat, palm up, and touch your thumb to your pinkie finger. If you see this raised thingie in your wrist…

…then you have the unnecessary muscle, palmaris longis, that is only really useful for climbing trees freehand. I have the palmaris longis in both my arms. Hubby does not, in either arm.

Clearly the three Auricularis muscles (ear movers, if you didn’t watch) are more developed in those of use who can wiggle our ears or scalp. From the video, I understand that both of these are traits that quite a few of us have evolved beyond.

I’d like to know – do any of you who do have odd talents have the palmaris longis? Do any of you who profess to have no human tricks have it?

My next question is likely to get fewer answers, but might explain my ‘unevolved’ state.

I’d like to know if any of you who responded to the original post have had DNA testing done on yourself, or close family members. I bought my father the National Geographic’s Genographic Project DNA testing kit a few years back. I won’t go into heavy detail here, but one part of his results does relate to my as-yet-untested hypothesis.

My father has “… about 2% Neanderthal, which is in the range for most of European extraction. (1-4%) No Denisovan.”

If my father is 2% Neandertal, that means I am about the same (the test only works on male DNA). So perhaps I got a bit more from mom, or dad has his own set of throwback abilities. Hi Dad! (Waves) Maybe send me an email and let me know what you think!

So who is in? Let’s see if my hypothesis that we who have wiggly bits that most don’t, also might be less evolved? I certainly don’t take the idea as something derogatory. I rather like the idea that I’m a bit of a throwback.