Why Can’t I Wiggle My Toes Individually Like My Fingers?

“Why can’t I wiggle my toes one at a time, like I can with my fingers?” asked Vincent, 15, from Arlington, Virginia. The short answer: our evolution, the way our muscles and tendons are arranged, and the way our brain controls movement all make fingers far better at precise, individual motions than toes.

Watching Chimps Use Their Feet

On a recent visit to a zoo in Knoxville, I watched a chimpanzee named Ripley pick up fruit and even grasp hoses and toys with his toes. Chimps can use their feet almost like hands because their feet stayed adapted for grasping. That can make us wonder why humans—so closely related to chimpanzees—can’t do the same things so easily.

Evolution: Why Feet and Hands Do Different Jobs

Humans are primates, and chimpanzees are our closest living relatives. Yet over millions of years our ancestors shifted from climbing and grasping with both hands and feet to walking upright on two legs. This change made balance and efficient forward propulsion the primary jobs of the human foot. As a result, hands became the main tools for manipulation.

Anatomy: Muscles, Tendons and Structure

Hands and feet share similar basic designs—five digits moved by muscles and tendons—but the details matter. A human foot contains roughly 29 muscles that work together to support walking, balance and propulsion. A hand has about 34 muscles specialized for manipulation. Most foot muscles act to point the toes, lift them, and help the foot roll inward or outward for stability on uneven ground.

The big toe is especially important for pushing the body forward while walking and has extra muscular support. The other four toes do not each have separate dedicated muscles; instead, a few muscles in the sole and long tendons from the calf move several toes together. Because those toes share muscles and tendons, they can wiggle, but not with the independent precision of fingers.

Neural Control: The Brain’s Role

The motor cortex — the part of the brain that plans and sends movement commands — devotes much more neural space to controlling the fingers than the toes. That extra "brain power" allows the fingers to receive highly detailed signals for fine, independent movements like typing, drawing or playing an instrument. Toes receive far coarser control because they are used mostly for balance and propulsion.

Putting It Together

So while humans can move their toes to some degree, anatomy and brain wiring shaped by upright walking make individual toe wiggling far less precise than individual finger movement. Watching a chimp use its feet like hands highlights how different evolutionary paths produced different specializations even in closely related animals.

Author: Steven Lautzenheiser, University of Tennessee. This piece is adapted from an article originally published by The Conversation.

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