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Scientist Shares The Freaky Useless Stuff Leftover On Human Bodies Via Evolution

Homo Sapiens like to think we’re far more evolved than our closest primate cousins (some even like to think that evolution isn’t real at all, but they have a lot of other issues). In reality, our bodies still include many of the telltale signs of primate life. These are “vestigial” pieces, things that no longer have a purpose because we don’t need them anymore, but will still show up on our bodies.

Evolutionary anthropologist Dorsa Amir created a thread about all of these “evolutionary leftovers” that has started circulating again, perhaps because being stuck inside with their bodies has made people more aware of them. Going through her list, it’s fun to see which ones you have.

For example, she writes of the human wrist, “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.”

Did I check on myself? You better believe it. And no, I do not have the muscles to swing through trees, sadly.

I do have extremely knobbly ears, which means my family branch has been moving their ears around quite a lot over the last few millennia. Makes sense. We love gossip.


No tailbone, unless it was removed when I was a baby:

I also have this goopy little pink thing, which was once much larger for all of us, creating an additional eyelid, like you might see on a cat:

If you get goosebumps, you’re just trying to get bigger to scare away predators. Imagine how hairy you’d have to be for that to work:


Even babies have stuff they don’t need:

Amir also tried to make a distinction between something being non-functional rather than vestigial, like nipples on someone who doesn’t lactate. Humans developing in the embryo could go either way, so they all develop nipples even if only half of them are technically “useful.”

Now, when will humans evolve past slinging sh*t when they’re mad?

More super interesting Twitter threads:

Aimeé Lutkin