Muscle · Foot

Abductor digiti minimi (foot)

Musculus abductor digiti minimi pedis

The muscle forming the outer border of the sole, running the length of the foot from the heel to the little toe — this is the FOOT muscle, not the identically named one on the little-finger side of the hand, and of the two it is much the larger. Its name describes pulling the little toe away from its neighbours, a movement almost nobody can produce on request. What it does instead is act as the lateral guy-wire of the foot, the mirror image of abductor hallucis along the inner edge, spanning from the back of the heel bone to the far end of the forefoot. It is the most lateral muscle of the sole's first layer and lies immediately beneath the skin, which makes it the easiest of the small foot muscles to find with a thumb.