Thumbs up panda8/27/2023 ![]() ![]() And therefore, we think that is the reason that the false thumb in modern pandas has become shorter, not longer," Wang said. Think of the false thumb as being stepped on every time the panda walks. "The hooked false thumb offers a tighter grasp of the bamboo and, at the same time, its less-protruded tip - because of the bended hook - makes it easier for the panda to walk. The modern panda's false thumb has some advantages over the earlier version. "It uses the false thumb as a very crude opposable thumb to grasp bamboos, sort of like our own thumbs except it is located at the wrist and is much shorter than human thumbs," said Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County paleontologist Xiaoming Wang, lead author of the research published in the journal Scientific Reports.Īilurarctos was an evolutionary forerunner of the modern panda, smaller but with anatomical traits signaling a similar lifestyle including a bamboo diet. The false thumb serves a similar function. A bear's hand lacks the opposable thumb possessed by humans and various primates that enables the grasping and handling of objects using the fingers. ![]() The false thumb is an evolutionary adaptation to augment the existing five actual digits of the panda's hand. It closely resembled the false thumb of modern pandas, but is a bit longer and lacks the inward hook present on the end in the extant species that provides even greater ability to manipulate bamboo stalks, shoots and roots while eating. Researchers said on Thursday they discovered near the city of Zhaotong in northern Yunnan Province fossils about 6 million years old of an extinct panda called Ailurarctos that bore the oldest-known evidence of this improvised extra digit - actually a greatly enlarged wrist bone called the radial sesamoid. WASHINGTON, June 30 (Reuters) - Fossils unearthed in China are helping scientists get a better grasp on one of the marvels of evolution: the giant panda's false thumb, which helps this veggie-loving bear munch the bamboo that makes up most of its diet. ![]()
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