Human hands may be less advanced than chimp's, according to a recent study.
Researchers at Stony Brook University found that human hand proportions have changed little from those of the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees. This finding indicates that chimpanzee hands may have evolved, and modern human hands are largely primitive in nature, NBC News reported.
For the study, researchers measured the hand proportions of humans, living and fossil apes as well as fossils of human ancestors including Ardipithecus ramidus and Australopithecus sediba, to understand the evolution of the hand.
They found that the more recent, convergent evolution of finger elongation in chimpanzees and orangutans and comparatively little change between humans, human ancestors and gorillas.
"Thus, the human hand retains these more 'primitive' proportions, whereas the elongated fingers and shorter thumbs of chimps, as well as orangutans, represent a more specialized and 'derived' form ideal for life in the trees ...," according to Michael Balter of Science magazine.
The findings, which are detailed in the journal Nature Communications, support the hypothesis that the long thumb to fingers ratio of the human hand was acquired convergently with other highly dexterous anthropoids. They also challenge the assumption that a chimp-like hand was the starting point of the last common ancestors of chimpanzees and humans.
