claw between toes...

Sometimes a claw develops between the thumb and the rest of the paw as Brian Tinker describes regarding his grey cat "Buddy". Buddy's back paws have 5 toes each, 4 normal ones and 1 dew claw. His front paws have between 5 and 7 toes each. The left front paw has 4 normal toes and an opposable thumb that remains underneath the paw and cannot lay in line with the rest of the toes. Between the opposable thumb and the regular toes (i.e. in the angle or crevice) was an additional claw. This was not associated with a toe and simply stuck out from the skin, unfortunately tearing the surrounding skin. Above the thumb is a vestigial toe that is only discernible through handling. On the right front paw, a similar vestigial toe has a segment of extra, jointed bone that can be felt and seen, but has no muscles or tendons controlling it (it can be freely wiggled up and down by the owner). On the right front paw, the thumb lies in line with the rest of the toes, but can also wrap downwards as an opposable digit. One of the claws on the right thumb became deformed and curled around on itself. The claw had died and snapped off easily. The nail-bed has since been removed.

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