31 fingers and toes

Schoolboy with 31 fingers and toes has surgery to remove his extra digits

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 1:01 PM on 24th March 2010

A six-year-old boy with 15 fingers and 16 toes has undergone surgery to remove his extra digits.
The unnamed Chinese child had four fingers on one hand and three on the other fused together.
He now has ten fingers and ten toes following a six-and-a-half hour operation at a hospital in Shenyang, Liaoning, to remove the surplus 11 digits.

Digitally enhanced: A Chinese schoolboy with 16 toes (above) has undergone surgery to have his surplus toes removed (below)

The boy has a condition known as polydactyly, in which one of a variety of genetic disorders - which can be inherited, or are new mutations - gives rise to excess digits.
Most commonly, the extra digits appear on the little finger side of the hand.

This child appears to have the much rarer condition of central polydactyly, in which the middle fingers and toes are duplicated.

Handy: The boy has a condition known as polydactyly, in which one of a variety of genetic disorders gives rise to too many digits

His mother said he had been ridiculed and called a 'monster' by his schoolmates in kindergarten.
He is thought to hold the world record for the number of digits ever recorded on a human being. The current official record holders are two Indian children, Pranamya Menaria and Devendra Harne, who both have 12 fingers and 13 toes.

Fixed: The child's right hand before and after this week's surgery