10 Quirks Of Evolution That Are Ruining Your Life

Thumbs. They're pretty great. They allow you to open jars, grip the monkeybars and give the thumbs up when something super wicked cool happens.

We usually view our opposable thumbs as proof that we are in fact on a higher evolutionary plane than the rest of the animal kingdom but, in reality, we're actually a couple of thumbs down from our closest primate relatives.

Before we did that whole walking on two legs thing, we were all the proud owners of a set of prehensile toes. These allowed us to grip things with our feet, but were unfortunately an unmitigated disaster in the world of bipedal balance.

However, if we had somehow figured out a way of walking upright without having to make the trade-off with our super thumb-toes, just imagine how useful it would be.

Imagine that you're carrying two cups of hot tea and you come across a closed door. It's a "pull" door. No problem, just whip out your toe-thumb and pull that mother open. It would also be a total game changer in activities such as knitting and rock climbing.

Don't be too down on your poor old posthensile big toe, though, because it really does do a marvellous job of keeping you upright at all the important moments.