Missing hair?

slipss

I guess the biology forum is the only place for this question. If you look at the back of your fingers, you have three joints, the main knuckles, the middle joint and the joint nearest your nails. Between the middle joint and the one nearest your nails there is a little bit of hair. This is true for your little finger, your ring finger and your middle finger. Your index finger however is lacking this bit of hair. Why so? Anyone care to venture a guess as to why we have evolved in a way that has excluded the need for the bit of hair on this particular part of this finger? Or the need for this bit of this finger to be hair free? What happened to the missing hair?

Rudolph Claus

All my fingers are hairless!
Sounds like your only a stage 1 or 2, i suggest toilet duck.

Tree

as a lady (and consequently less hairy and testoterone filled) i can say that my fingers are all hairless above the first knuckle.

Love2love

Well I'm a girl and I have a few very fine hairs on my hands, so fine in fact that I never noticed it before. Maybe its to do with the fact that the index finger is used more than the others

Victor

This also affects the middle section of my baby fingers.

Love2love wrote:

Maybe its to do with the fact that the index finger is used more than the others

Possibly, areas where there is regular friction (palms, knuckles, knees) tend to have less hair. Also, when one makes a fist, the thumb is likely to partially cover the middle section of the index finger. So, I'm going with abrasion.

toothie

No hair on my fingers either!

slipss

Victor wrote:

Also, when one makes a fist, the thumb is likely to partially cover the middle section of the index finger. So, I'm going with abrasion.

Ahh good thinking bud, makes sense.

Tree

Victor wrote:

This also affects the middle section of my baby fingers.Possibly, areas where there is regular friction (palms, knuckles, knees) tend to have less hair. Also, when one makes a fist, the thumb is likely to partially cover the middle section of the index finger. So, I'm going with abrasion.

Abrasion also explains the extra hair ppl have under their arms, between their legs and on the front of the legs/pubic area

Victor

Tree wrote:

Abrasion also explains the extra hair ppl have under their arms, between their legs and on the front of the legs/pubic area

I understand thats more to do with flushed hormones from the lymph system.