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oligodactyly

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Also known as Absent finger

Oligodactyly () is the presence of fewer than five digits (fingers or toes) on a hand or foot.

Key facts

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Oligodactyly
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Oligodactyly as a result of ectrodactyly on the feet of a one-year-old child
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Medical genetics

via Wikipedia infobox

~2 min read

Encyclopedic overview

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Contents
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Oligodactyly () is the presence of fewer than five digits (fingers or toes) on a hand or foot.

It is quite often incorrectly called hypodactyly; the Greek prefixes hypo- and hyper- are used for continuous scales (e.g. in hypoglycaemia and hyperthermia), as opposed to discrete or countable scales, where oligo- and poly- should be used (e.g. in oligarchy and polygamy). Oligodactyly is therefore the opposite of polydactyly. Very rare, this medical condition usually has a genetic or familial cause.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “oligodactyly” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.