Chimp Hands Are More Evolved Than Humans’, But We Could Still Beat Them In Thumb Wars

Human hands can do so much — paint a picture, change a diaper, play the piano. That would make you think that they’re superior to those owned by our primate cousin, the chimp.

While the chimp uses his hands to climb trees and pick tasty bugs from his friends’ fur, they couldn’t come close to tackling a musical instrument. Nonetheless, they’re actually much more evolved than ours, a new study has found.

But we still have better thumbs, at least.

The pervading belief about human and chimp hands has been that we both started out life on Earth with similar mitts. When people started making tools, ours evolved to be superior, NBC News explained. The structure of our modern hands actually date back to about 6 million years, and tool use began about 3.3 million years ago.

And they haven’t changed much in all that time, no matter what we’ve done with them.

Scientists came to that conclusion by examining human, chimp, and orangutan mitts, and what’s left of those from early apes and our ancestors, says the Discovery News. We do have one thing on those other animals, though — opposable thumbs.

“Human hands are marked by a relatively long thumb when compared to the length of their four other fingers — a trait that is often cited as one of the reasons for the success of our species because it facilitates a ‘pad-to-pad precision grip,’ ” said Kurtis Hiatt, a spokesperson for George Washington University.

Chimps’ hands, by contrast, are long and slender, with a short thumb that just meets the palm and isn’t opposable. Gorillas also have the lesser, more primitive model like we do. The reason? They’re also terrestrial.

Like us, gorillas have the standard set of five fingers with the handy opposable thumb. Their feet are like ours, too, but have a much more flexible big toe.

In contrast to the human and gorilla lifestyle, the chimp is ace at climbing trees (and also amazing at giving hugs), while we keep our two feet solidly on the ground. The price was paid, apparently, with a shoddy pair of hands.

So, if humans want to best the chimp in the evolutionary race for superior limbs, we better start swinging from the trees in our suburban backyards.

[Photo Courtesy of Lisa Maree Williams / Getty Images]