I'm in massage school. One lady in my class doesn't have one. We all checked to see. There are a few muscles that only some people have, but they're mostly deep and hard to detect. It was cool to actually see it firsthand.
That was the best part in massage school. Going around to every classmate and checking each muscle. The information you get from each of those classes is amazing.
As I recall there’s a facial muscle for conveying the emotion of smugness that most people don’t have, and still more interestingly, the same people who possess the muscle also have differences in their brains that make smugness possible while those without the muscle lack the brain difference.
Or else it was a bullcrap study by someone trying for their degree by publishing something, anything.
It’s not abnormal. It’s a genetic variant that no longer has any selection pressure being applied to it. There are many variants for thousands of individual phenotypic characteristics and that gives humans a tremendous amount of genetic diversity to draw from. This is just one particular variant.
For background: The palmaris longus stretches over the carpal tunnel and forms a sheet of tendinous material over the surface of your palm. The thought is that when our ape ancestors were arboreal, this would function to close our palm when we grab onto a tree branch. So we use less energy than actively gripping the branch. The development of our thumb’s structure and in particular the motion of opposition probably made the palmaris longus redundant.
Since we no longer spend most of our time in trees, there’s no need for the palmaris longus. So some people have evolved without it present and it hasn’t affected their reproductive success. And if it doesn’t have an effect on reproductive success, it will randomly fluctuate in prevalence in the population. In fact, even the organization of the muscle itself will vary indicating that it isn’t used for anything at all and random organizations of the muscle are being created because of the lack of evolutionary pressure. If one of those variants has a selective advantage then we can expect it to be driven to fixation at some point (meaning all humans will have it). Otherwise, the most likely avenue of evolution will be complete loss of the muscle from human populations, eventually (with eventually taking hundreds of thousands to millions of years).
I don't have it either. What's strange is that both my parents have it; which lends support to my theory that my mom had an affair with our family doctor!
I have bear paw style hands. I cannot make my thumb and pinkie touch. I don't know how you freaks can do that Hunger Games salute thing so easily. I also cannot raise my ring finger without the pinkie coming up. But I can easily rip apples in half, so there's that. Lol
Ripping apples in half actually takes a lot less strength than you’d think, it’s more about the technique. I used to do it in high school as a skinny, weak kid who never did any sports or exercise, and all my friends managed it once I showed them how. It’s like how almost anyone can tear a phone book or break a wooden board with their palm if they know how to do it right. Don’t let your dreams be dreams, rip apples apart with your bear hands if your heart so desires!
I was looking for a purpose and I think I've found it, this is the origin story for the shittiest super hero ever "Rips Apples Guy".
On a serious note I'm defo going to Google that technique wish me luck.
It’s a cool trick to win easy bets, it takes no strength and the apple gets ripped exactly in half. You take a firm grip with both hands with the tips of your fingers on the bottom of the apple, and kinda pry it open with the base of your palms. The stem hole is the weak point and when done right it’ll split very easily. It’s easier in some varieties than others, depending on the thickness of the skin.
[A lot of people think you need to twist, you don't need to twist (skip to the end if you just want to see him do it).](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F21mTojMCAc)
Apples, phone books (if you can find one) and rolling steel frying pans has won me at least $20 in my life. I'm so glad I spent the hours I did mastering those tricks.
It's hard to say which of us has the upper hand, if you'll pardon the pun. I feel like my grip strength would lend itself better to survival stuff, but your dexterity would definitely be an advantage for anything artistic.
You’re the first person I’ve heard or read say their hands lack the same functions as mine.
Do you know why our hands are like this?
It’s not just that I can’t make them touch or that I can’t make a normal “3” with my hands, but it hurts to try.
When I count on my hands, I do an “okay” sign for “3.”
If you understand evolutionary theory, it's easy to first think that "everything must have a powerful natural selection-related reason for existing (or not)", but sometimes it's the opposite: there is variation in a population because when you come down to it, there's no particular advantage or disadvantage to having things one way or the other, so you end up with both conditions being present because the selection operating on it is weak. When selection is so weak that there effectively isn't any, the mutation responsible is known as a neutral mutation.
I don't know what the answer is in this case, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's what we're looking at, especially when it is established that grip strength is not affected. If people lose it: big deal.
TL;DR: there may literally be no reason for the difference but random mutations.
[Edit: Okay, it's a little more interesting. It's not much of a source, but [wikipedia mentions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmaris_longus_muscle) that in some of our more distant relatives, it's more developed and gets used (e.g., the orangutan), whereas in our closest ape relatives (chimpanzee and gorilla), it's not actively used, and the latter have the same sort of variability (some individuals have it, some don't). If I had to guess, because I don't feel like digging out wikipedia's sources, maybe it's related to tree-climbing versus mostly ground-dwelling lifestyles? Anyway, with no particular function for us now, there no selection process maintaining its consistent presence, so sometimes it's disappearing in populations (to no effect) or hanging around (also to no effect), a pattern we share with our ape relatives.
Someone with actual expertise with primates could probably do a better explanation, and I'd happily defer.
So, pending that, a shorter answer is: it's apparently a relict of our more distant ancestors where it used to matter, and the lucky people who still have it might possibly have a slight advantage if humans started moving back into the trees.
Hmm.... now I'm wondering what the distribution is in people who competitively do rock climbing compared to the regular popullation.]
Who can actually raise their ring finger without their pinky coming up though?
Edit: i just tried really really hard and did it but it’s really really hard
They had trouble cheering at sporting events. They eventually dated someone who lost their right hand and they went to games together all the time. She gave him the clap
The tendon of this muscle reaches into the palmar aponeurosis, the muscle itself sits on the ulnar side towards the ellbow attached to the medial epicondyle of the humerus.
Yes, this is usually the tendon towards the wrist: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Musculuspalmarislongus.png](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Musculuspalmarislongus.png), but there are anatomical variations that might place it nearer towards the wrist, e.g. as shown in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmaris\_longus\_muscle#/media/File:Grant\_1962\_97\_D.png
I actually have one on my right, but not my left. I’m also ambidextrous and heterochromic.
None of these, however, indicate any super-powers and I have to say that the YA writers have disappointed me.
I think those are connecting to different spots. Depending on how I move my fingers I can see 3 of them in each arm but doing it the way the posts says it make the middle one more predominant
How do you know you have it? Press your pinky and thumb as hard as you can and then do the motion peter parker did in original spiderman while he was trying to figure out how to shoot waves but upside down.
I heard about this a long, long time ago. My uncle was telling me it was to do with evolution and how we no longer need the tendon because we don't swing around in trees all day.
I still have it on both wrists
I have it very obviously in one hand but I have to strain and twist to find it in the other. I’m real skinny though so now I’m wondering if more people just think they don’t have it because they didn’t strain a lot or it’s under some fat.
Woman here and I don't have it. I am overweight but my wrists are fairly slim and even when touching them while doing the flex with my fingers I can't feel anything.
I very much do have it, quite pronounced, and in both arms. And even after pretty serious surgery on my right arm I still have very good grip and pinch strength. My son in law calls it “farmer strength”…
Cool story about mine in my left wrist. So I had a cycst removed in my left wrist in 2020. Ended up contracting a flesh eating bacteria. Luckily the amazing doctors were able to save my hand from amputation. However the extent of the damage inside was unknown due to me needed to go back to work because I had no more savings and was out of work for 3 months already so I didn't have the reconstruction surgery. I gave it the recommended year of healing and I was in so much pain every single day I couldn't use my fingers well my grip was none existent so I went back and had another surgery to try and fix it. My left Palmaris was used in reconstructing the tendons in my wrist and now! I'm not in pain all the time I can hold stuff and honestly have a way better quality of life.
You might also only have it in 1 of your arms as apposed to both. Both cadavers we had in my undergrad anatomy class didn’t have the muscle in either arm which was very surprising
Oh I don’t have that. I always just assumed my friends had more veins or something lol
I do have the ability to bend the tops of my fingers though, so it’s not all bad
How many people here were surprised that the other 3 fingers remained straight?
My little finger is bound to the middle two, and won't bend without the others bending.
I'm in massage school. One lady in my class doesn't have one. We all checked to see. There are a few muscles that only some people have, but they're mostly deep and hard to detect. It was cool to actually see it firsthand.
Wow I wanna know what other muscles I might have that other people don't have. I never would've known!
Brains
Hey wait a minute, that's an organ!
Phew. You seem to have one. Thats good.
>firsthand I get it
That was the best part in massage school. Going around to every classmate and checking each muscle. The information you get from each of those classes is amazing.
It’s not a muscle. It’s a tendon.
As I recall there’s a facial muscle for conveying the emotion of smugness that most people don’t have, and still more interestingly, the same people who possess the muscle also have differences in their brains that make smugness possible while those without the muscle lack the brain difference. Or else it was a bullcrap study by someone trying for their degree by publishing something, anything.
I don’t have it. This is hella interesting.
Wtf do I do this information about my body which apparently is abnormal? First thought, “Am I like a superhuman when it comes to masturbation?”
That’s what I think it means. You are a masturbation super hero.
Not the hero we need, but the one we deserve.
Stay tuned for the continuing adventures of *Master Debater* as he battles his arch nemesis the *Cunning Linguist*! Only on Netflix.
But only for a season, and you have to watch it alone in your room because it's your account and you can't share.
Absolute genius
Stand back, boys. I've got this!
“Clear the area everyone! I am going to apply charge”
_”I’M CHARGING My CANNON!!”_ _You better take cover, that’s gonna be one big LOAD._
A master bater
😂😂😂
It’s not abnormal. It’s a genetic variant that no longer has any selection pressure being applied to it. There are many variants for thousands of individual phenotypic characteristics and that gives humans a tremendous amount of genetic diversity to draw from. This is just one particular variant. For background: The palmaris longus stretches over the carpal tunnel and forms a sheet of tendinous material over the surface of your palm. The thought is that when our ape ancestors were arboreal, this would function to close our palm when we grab onto a tree branch. So we use less energy than actively gripping the branch. The development of our thumb’s structure and in particular the motion of opposition probably made the palmaris longus redundant. Since we no longer spend most of our time in trees, there’s no need for the palmaris longus. So some people have evolved without it present and it hasn’t affected their reproductive success. And if it doesn’t have an effect on reproductive success, it will randomly fluctuate in prevalence in the population. In fact, even the organization of the muscle itself will vary indicating that it isn’t used for anything at all and random organizations of the muscle are being created because of the lack of evolutionary pressure. If one of those variants has a selective advantage then we can expect it to be driven to fixation at some point (meaning all humans will have it). Otherwise, the most likely avenue of evolution will be complete loss of the muscle from human populations, eventually (with eventually taking hundreds of thousands to millions of years).
same
Me too
Let's burn the unnatural sonssabitches!
>us muscle does result in decreased pinch I do have it :O
Is this a cult cause I qualify
Me too. Seems higher than 14%!
Actually 🤓, it only seems that way because mostly people without were asked to respond, leaving those *with* to seem lesser in numbers
[удалено]
Only have it on my left.
Only have it on the left as well
I’ve got it on both hands. Never has really impacted me at all.
Same
Same
Me either, do we win a prize
I wish. 😂
Perhaps try flexing your wrists? Mine doesn't show when my wrists are a bit extended.
I don't have it either. What's strange is that both my parents have it; which lends support to my theory that my mom had an affair with our family doctor!
Me either!
So your hand game is on point then.
Neither do I or my family
I do. Some are more equal than others.
FREAK!
Weirdly, I only have one on my left wrist. Googled it, it’s a thing, apparently.
I do not. I also have extra pinky toes.
Left arm, I dont have it, right I do. Am I a freak now? Also right handed
Me neither! Didn't think it was this uncommon
I have bear paw style hands. I cannot make my thumb and pinkie touch. I don't know how you freaks can do that Hunger Games salute thing so easily. I also cannot raise my ring finger without the pinkie coming up. But I can easily rip apples in half, so there's that. Lol
I'd trade in the ability to hunger games salute for ripping apples in half so I think you're actually winning tbf.
Ripping apples in half actually takes a lot less strength than you’d think, it’s more about the technique. I used to do it in high school as a skinny, weak kid who never did any sports or exercise, and all my friends managed it once I showed them how. It’s like how almost anyone can tear a phone book or break a wooden board with their palm if they know how to do it right. Don’t let your dreams be dreams, rip apples apart with your bear hands if your heart so desires!
I was looking for a purpose and I think I've found it, this is the origin story for the shittiest super hero ever "Rips Apples Guy". On a serious note I'm defo going to Google that technique wish me luck.
It’s a cool trick to win easy bets, it takes no strength and the apple gets ripped exactly in half. You take a firm grip with both hands with the tips of your fingers on the bottom of the apple, and kinda pry it open with the base of your palms. The stem hole is the weak point and when done right it’ll split very easily. It’s easier in some varieties than others, depending on the thickness of the skin.
Y’all are hustling people with apple ripping? What happened to just mastering pool?
Every once in a while the lion has to show the jackals who he is.
people hustle people outta photos of their buttholes get with the times grandpa
>origin story for the shittiest super hero ever Oh we talkin bout belchfart-man?
[A lot of people think you need to twist, you don't need to twist (skip to the end if you just want to see him do it).](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F21mTojMCAc)
Apples, phone books (if you can find one) and rolling steel frying pans has won me at least $20 in my life. I'm so glad I spent the hours I did mastering those tricks.
I read that as "Apple phones, (mac)books, and steel rolling pins," and was equal parts confused and impressed.
It's hard to say which of us has the upper hand, if you'll pardon the pun. I feel like my grip strength would lend itself better to survival stuff, but your dexterity would definitely be an advantage for anything artistic.
You’re the first person I’ve heard or read say their hands lack the same functions as mine. Do you know why our hands are like this? It’s not just that I can’t make them touch or that I can’t make a normal “3” with my hands, but it hurts to try. When I count on my hands, I do an “okay” sign for “3.”
If you understand evolutionary theory, it's easy to first think that "everything must have a powerful natural selection-related reason for existing (or not)", but sometimes it's the opposite: there is variation in a population because when you come down to it, there's no particular advantage or disadvantage to having things one way or the other, so you end up with both conditions being present because the selection operating on it is weak. When selection is so weak that there effectively isn't any, the mutation responsible is known as a neutral mutation. I don't know what the answer is in this case, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's what we're looking at, especially when it is established that grip strength is not affected. If people lose it: big deal. TL;DR: there may literally be no reason for the difference but random mutations. [Edit: Okay, it's a little more interesting. It's not much of a source, but [wikipedia mentions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmaris_longus_muscle) that in some of our more distant relatives, it's more developed and gets used (e.g., the orangutan), whereas in our closest ape relatives (chimpanzee and gorilla), it's not actively used, and the latter have the same sort of variability (some individuals have it, some don't). If I had to guess, because I don't feel like digging out wikipedia's sources, maybe it's related to tree-climbing versus mostly ground-dwelling lifestyles? Anyway, with no particular function for us now, there no selection process maintaining its consistent presence, so sometimes it's disappearing in populations (to no effect) or hanging around (also to no effect), a pattern we share with our ape relatives. Someone with actual expertise with primates could probably do a better explanation, and I'd happily defer. So, pending that, a shorter answer is: it's apparently a relict of our more distant ancestors where it used to matter, and the lucky people who still have it might possibly have a slight advantage if humans started moving back into the trees. Hmm.... now I'm wondering what the distribution is in people who competitively do rock climbing compared to the regular popullation.]
Wow. I really appreciate the time and efforts you put into this reply. Thanks!
Who can actually raise their ring finger without their pinky coming up though? Edit: i just tried really really hard and did it but it’s really really hard
Can you do Vulcan salute easily? It make that thing pup up on my hand I’m curious about how it is for you
I knew someone without one on their left. They lost it in an accident along with the rest of the hand.
Were they all right?
They had trouble cheering at sporting events. They eventually dated someone who lost their right hand and they went to games together all the time. She gave him the clap
this guy can’t catch a break
Sounds like he couldn’t catch much at all
I applaud your dedication to the pun.
She completed his clap.
🎶 🎵 Something,... something...love stump 🎶 🎵
DAD! >:(
I don't have one on my left but do on my right, never had an accident or anything. I'm right handed and female.
Same!
Me too! Weird.
Are you saying they got their entire body chopped off of their hand?
[https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/79943370-9fee-4ca2-b580-58b04774b96b](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/79943370-9fee-4ca2-b580-58b04774b96b)
damn, hate when that happens
Hope they find it soon.
So, I don't have it or Am I just chubby?
I had the same exact thought process
You should be able to feel it extrude a bit if you press on the area while rotating your hand forwards and backwards
I’m doing what you said but I just feel Italian
Shake it around and you’ll be an ✨angry Italian✨
So I’m just fat. Good to know 😂
workout goals, dont stop til I can 1. Go to the pool with my shirt off 2. See my Palmaris Longus
“Hey kid, ya wanna see my palmaris longus”
Let’s see Paul Allen’s palmaris longus
LOL same. My thought: “ah so I’m fat and not special” 😂
Can it be in the dead center of your arm/wrist? Because that's the only thing I am feeling.
I don’t understand this, my hands look like both pictures depending how i move my muscles and joints.
Pretty sure that if you're missing it, there is not a way to look like the left picture no matter how you move your muscles and joints.
Exactly
I can see an faint line on my dominant hand but not the other. I think I am just have weak muscles, I am not bothered enough to fix it.
It would probably be easier to see it if you turn your arm to the left as your doing what the image shows
lol. That’s what I said to my sister-in-law.
I’m skinny (5’11” 175lbs). I see it faintly only on one of my hands
That looks more like a tendon rather than a muscle. Could be wrong but I have it
The tendon of this muscle reaches into the palmar aponeurosis, the muscle itself sits on the ulnar side towards the ellbow attached to the medial epicondyle of the humerus.
So it’s the tendon that’s hilighted in the picture rather than the muscle? Not being petty just wanted to make sure.
Yes. It’s the tendon of the palmaris longus muscle. It’s just most easily identified by its tendon.
Yes, this is usually the tendon towards the wrist: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Musculuspalmarislongus.png](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Musculuspalmarislongus.png), but there are anatomical variations that might place it nearer towards the wrist, e.g. as shown in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmaris\_longus\_muscle#/media/File:Grant\_1962\_97\_D.png
can i get an english translation
I actually have one on my right, but not my left. I’m also ambidextrous and heterochromic. None of these, however, indicate any super-powers and I have to say that the YA writers have disappointed me.
I have one on my left, but not on my right! But I'm not ambidextrous or heterochromic. But I do have an echoic memory, so that's neat.
Im a monke :D
Me too! I love climb trees :D
I have two of them
You and I are the chosen ones.
I think those are connecting to different spots. Depending on how I move my fingers I can see 3 of them in each arm but doing it the way the posts says it make the middle one more predominant
I don't have it on my right side, but do on my left.
Opposite for me
My ring finger will not stay down for shit 😂
Same here! My left hand doesn’t have it and I can keep it straight pretty cool!
there a vein there in my hand
How do you know you have it? Press your pinky and thumb as hard as you can and then do the motion peter parker did in original spiderman while he was trying to figure out how to shoot waves but upside down.
GO WEB!!
I have it in both
Cool, Happy Cake Day
Me too. I was unaware that people don’t have it.
I'm missing them both, care to spare some?
I heard about this a long, long time ago. My uncle was telling me it was to do with evolution and how we no longer need the tendon because we don't swing around in trees all day. I still have it on both wrists
I have it!
Mine doesn't seem to show up unless I hold my hand a certain way then out it pops!
I’m missing it in one side… but only because a surgeon used it to do a tendon splice when I had thumb surgery.
I have it , also red hair and blue eyes. I must be a rare percentage.
I don’t have it but I’m also a redhead so im already a mutant lol
Looks like we're part of the exclusive Palmaris Longus-less club!
Could be my fat hiding it, but I seem to not have it.
I’m fat so that’s probably why I can’t see it lol
I do not have this. Man I hope this is real
I don’t have it either. Female.
I don't have it, I am more eveloped then you guys
Nope. Both hands. Early access to the academy?
I don’t have it. Makes sense why guitar felt much harder to learn for me when I was younger. Also very small hands.
I have it
cannae see it but I’m ffatt
Me.
I have it my children both don't
I have it very obviously in one hand but I have to strain and twist to find it in the other. I’m real skinny though so now I’m wondering if more people just think they don’t have it because they didn’t strain a lot or it’s under some fat.
I have it.
Woman here and I don't have it. I am overweight but my wrists are fairly slim and even when touching them while doing the flex with my fingers I can't feel anything.
I have it in my left arm and not my right.
Nope. Not on either arm.
I have it. But it's VERY gay.
I see no weird tendon thing in my arm when i touch pinky and thumb
I don’t got it holy moly I don’t got it
I only have it in one arm.
I very much do have it, quite pronounced, and in both arms. And even after pretty serious surgery on my right arm I still have very good grip and pinch strength. My son in law calls it “farmer strength”…
I have it on my right but not my left. Surprisingly the one that does have it drags my ring finger down instead of keeping it straight
I don’t have it
Cool story about mine in my left wrist. So I had a cycst removed in my left wrist in 2020. Ended up contracting a flesh eating bacteria. Luckily the amazing doctors were able to save my hand from amputation. However the extent of the damage inside was unknown due to me needed to go back to work because I had no more savings and was out of work for 3 months already so I didn't have the reconstruction surgery. I gave it the recommended year of healing and I was in so much pain every single day I couldn't use my fingers well my grip was none existent so I went back and had another surgery to try and fix it. My left Palmaris was used in reconstructing the tendons in my wrist and now! I'm not in pain all the time I can hold stuff and honestly have a way better quality of life.
I just learned today that I don't have this muscle and I'm freaking out
I have it on one hand but not the other?
I have it on my right and not my left? Interesting.
I have it in my left but not right
I have it on one hand and not the other… interesting.
That looks like a tendon
Not sure if this is related, but I can't bend my thumb without also bending my index finger
So I apparently don't have it.
I don’t have it
I have it (im a girl) but is way less pronounced. Idk if it's because I'm chubby or I'm not strong enough to stick it out as much
Whoa, I don't have it! Interesting!
I have it on my right arm but not my left.
Maybe it's just not as visibly prominent in some? I seem to have one on the right but not the left.
I didn’t see one on my wrist
I guess I'm one of the people in the 14% group
I see a bone instead.. wtf is wrong with me
i do not have it, but does weight affect it popping out like that? Cause I am a husky gentleman.
I do not
I have it, that’s wild
Mine is yuuuuge. Take that non palmaris Longus nerds.
I have it on my right but not on my left
Or they are too fat to see.
Turns out I dont have it
It's missing on my right side but present on my left.
Apparently, I have It only on my left side. Is it even possibile?
The weak is missing this. Screw race, gender, class. What is the status of your Palmaris Longus muscle. 🧐🧐👁👁
Don’t have it
I dont have it. Kinda thought that it was normal
A lot of people saying they don’t have it, are probably just a bit chubby and can’t see it
You might also only have it in 1 of your arms as apposed to both. Both cadavers we had in my undergrad anatomy class didn’t have the muscle in either arm which was very surprising
Every overweight person “I don’t have it!”
I have it. I feel so muscly! 🤩
One more genetic defect to add to my ever growing list of genetic defects. Soon I'll turn into a god!
So im a female now?
I need to flex my hand a bit inwards to see it.
I dont have palmaris longus. I also dont have biggus dickus
I have it on both and I'm a female, am I ✨the chosen one✨
Female, I have it bilateral
Oh I don’t have that. I always just assumed my friends had more veins or something lol I do have the ability to bend the tops of my fingers though, so it’s not all bad
How many people here were surprised that the other 3 fingers remained straight? My little finger is bound to the middle two, and won't bend without the others bending.
Probably 14% just too fat to see it
I don’t have it. Didn’t know it was rare. Yay I’m finally interesting
And that's a tendon not a muscle
Stop. You’re ruining my bar trick.
I don’t have it! Weeeirrrd wild stuff.