Did You Know That Fingers Prune Underwater Not Because Of

source: reddit.com

It’s a temporary skin condition in which the epidermal layers on the top of your fingers become very wrinkly. Scientists impute this peculiar human response to prolonged exposure of water to simple evolutionary reasons. When our toes and fingers wrinkle they provide us with the elaborate ability to better take hold of objects in wet conditions. It also improves our traction when walking on wet floors.

In other previous explanations of this phenomenon in the past, scientists referred its existence to a special chemical compound called keratin. When in contact with water, keratin causes the skin to expand which ultimately results in the wrinkling of larger skin area. Usually, the tips of the fingers and toes wrinkle first because it is where the biggest amount of keratin cells is situated.