Thursday, January 08, 2009

Other animals with opposable thumbs (Wikipedia)


Apart from humans, many animals, primates and others, also have some kind of opposable thumb or toe:


Orangutan - opposable thumbs on both hands and both feet. The interdigital grip gives them the ability to pick fruit.
Gorillas - opposable on both hands and both feet.
Chimpanzees have opposable thumbs on both hands and both feet.
Lesser Apes have opposable thumbs on both hands and both feet.
Old World Monkeys, with some exceptions, such as the genera, Piliocolobus and Colobus.
Cebids (New World primates of Central and South America) - some have opposable thumbs.
Koala - opposable toe on each foot, plus two opposable digits on each hand.
Opossum - opposable thumb on rear feet.
Giant Panda - Panda paws have five clawed fingers plus an extra bone that works like an opposable thumb. This "thumb" is not really a finger (like the human thumb is), but an extra-long sesamoid bone that works like a thumb.
Troodon - a birdlike dinosaur with partially opposable thumbs.
Bambiraptor - a small, predatory dinosaur, was able to touch the outer two of its three digits together in an opposable grip.
Aye-aye - small primate once thought to be a rodent
Bonobo - a frugivorous primate of the genus Pan. A close relative of the chimpanzee.
Phyllomedusa – A phylum of frogs with opposable thumbs native to South America.

5 comments:

Margs said...

did this post come about as a resault of an argument?

Matt said...

Less argument, more civil discussion. But yes.

Sarah said...

There was just a little opposing conjecture followed by a vow to research and present findings for the satisfaction of the group curiosity.

Flit said...

Damn, you really weren't kidding about a slow day hmm.

Margs said...

it sounded like it....may I ask who won?