Opposable Thumbs Or Not?

[Sunflower]

They can open car, van and truck doors.  They have been known to unlatch and then relatch door handles on barns and chicken houses.  The tree and grass structures pics I've seen could only have been made by a being with an opposable thumb.

[Guest]

^ So a thumbless person can't open vehicle doors, open and shut barn doors, or create stick structures?!

[Guest]

Dr. Krantz deduced from casts of hand prints from two separate sources that they do not have opposable thumbs. If I remember right Dr. Meldom agreed with this. Green reported a witness that saw them moving rocks to catch rodents and that they didn't seem to have thumbs. Paulides took a witness report where a BF reached in a bathroom window and witness stated that the thumb and fingers bent the same way.

 

To conclude that they have to have opposable thumbs because they are hominids or apes is backwards thinking.

[Guest Divergent1]

To conclude bigfoot exists at all would be considered backwards thinking to most of the world. I think it's interesting that you bring it up but I'm not sure what the significance is either way. What would not having an opposable thumb indicate about bigfoot's origins if you had to guess?

[southernyahoo]

http://www.handresearch.com/diagnostics/palmar-creases-hand-lines-primatology.htm

 

 

It's just a matter of proportions and thumb length in regards to function. All the great apes appear as though they could pick something up between their thumb and index finger. Opposable.

 

All great apes have oppable  thumbs, but none of the primate thumbs is capable of doing precision grips like humans can. And in none of the primates is the thumb as long as the human thumb - see the various photos below. The gorilla hand is featured with a relatively long thumb + has the shortest fingers and is thereby closest to the human hand in it's manual proportions. But chimpanzees and bonobos are more capable of making the typical human 'precision grip'. So quality of prehension is not only related to thumb length; motoric funtion & versatility are also heavily involved in that. And of course, the structure & other fingers as well! 

 

 

[Guest]

To conclude bigfoot exists at all would be considered backwards thinking to most of the world. I think it's interesting that you bring it up but I'm not sure what the significance is either way. What would not having an opposable thumb indicate about bigfoot's origins if you had to guess?

Not having an opposable thumb would most likely mean that bigfoot was descended from something other than an ape.

[Guest Divergent1]

Yes, but what? What animal in NA, or animal present on other continents if you include those sightings from other countries as bigfoot sightings, could it have evolved from? I'm going through my limited mental list of megafauna from the ice age here in NA and I can't come up with a good candidate, much less one that was present on several different continents at the same time during that era. I'ld like to hear what the zoologist thinks could have been the progenitor species as it relates to the fossil record debate for bigfoot in NA.

[Guest]

lack of opposable thumbs only says not ape or hominid. Nothing else. Plenty of other species do not have opposable thumbs.

[Guest]

All old world primates have opposable thumbs except the very primitive primates of Madagascar. All new world primates have pseudo-opposable thumbs except the spider monkey which has no thumbs at all. The separation of new world primates and old world primates occurred 30 million years ago. So it is reasonable to think that the origin of BF occurred in the new world because it apparently has pseudo-opposable thumbs. Their bipedalism is completely different from ours, so their bipedalism must have evolved independently from us.  They could have been around a lot longer than us. Homo sapiens has only been around for about a million years and there is 30 million years separation between us and them.

[Guest Divergent1]

Wouldn't the DNA studies, no matter how questionable they might be, have identified something that was similar to primates that evolved from the new world order if that were the case?

[Guest]

Could not the many folks here who tell us they have seen a bf up close not tell us the answer?

 

t.

I wonder this all the time.  We have people on this forum that have regular interaction with them - yet we debate over opposable thumbs, hooded noses, eye color, favorite ice cream flavor.  Can we get an expert in here to just mind speak to them and we can sort all this out?

 

I've also read multiple times that it HAS to be BF doing the wood knocks and rock tossing because those activities would require an opposable thumb.  Then I read reports where they don't have them.  Something there is not adding up.  I know there are certain breeds of dogs and cats that regularly have polydactylism - but a gene that removes a tool - you think that would get bred out of the gene pool fairly quickly. 

[Guest]

You don't need an opposable thumb to do wood knocks or throw rocks.

 

Few people understand sterile technique which is required for collecting DNA. Everyone wants to handle the hair which contaminates the sample.

[Guest]

You don't need an opposable thumb to do wood knocks or throw rocks.

 

Few people understand sterile technique which is required for collecting DNA. Everyone wants to handle the hair which contaminates the sample.

People have claimed that, all the time, here on this forum.  Next time I see it I will let you know.  They claim that's why no other animal could be doing those behaviors (except possibly the other researchers in the next camp.)

[Guest lightheart]

Would an opposable thumb be necessary to weave or to tie knots? What about to break a stick tip into a spear point ( the tip in half)? What about to shred palmettos for bedding? These are sincere questions I am asking. Sometimes tone can be lost in a post. No snark

here. (:

[Guest]

Would an opposable thumb be necessary to weave or to tie knots? What about to break a stick tip into a spear point ( the tip in half)? What about to shred palmettos for bedding? These are sincere questions I am asking. Sometimes tone can be lost in a post. No snark

here. (:

To be honest, no.  Not required for most of those things.  I braid rawhide quite a bit and I just gave it a test.  I fumbled my way through it and tying knots, it wasn't easy nor did they look good.  But I'm sure if I had no thumbs, I would adapt and it would feel more normal.  Are you suggesting that BF does these things you have mentioned?