It is hard to distinguish them, say experts. Fingerprints are complex patterns of ridges on fingertips caused by the folds of the skin. They improve grip and enhance sensitivity to touch. Koalas feed by climbing onto eucalyptus trees, reaching out and grasping tender leaves. Scientists feel their fingerprint features may have evolved as an adaptation to grasping, just as those of our hominid ancestors who climbed trees.
For centuries, anatomists have intensely debated the purpose of fingerprints. According to the team of anatomists at the University of Adelaide in Australia who discovered koala fingerprints in 1996, koala prints may help explain the features’ purpose. The clue lies in our shared way of grasping.
“Koalas … feed by climbing vertically onto the smaller branches of eucalyptus trees, reaching out, grasping handfuls of leaves and bringing them to the mouth,” the researchers wrote in their landmark paper. “Therefore the origin of dermatoglyphes [fingerprints] is best explained as the biomechanical adaptation to grasping, which produces multidirectional mechanical influences on the skin. These forces must be precisely felt for fine control of movement and static pressures and hence require orderly organization of the skin surface.”
Humans and chimps grasp; koalas grasp — to do so, it helps to have fingerprints.
Picture Credit : Google
