News of the bizarre!
Scientists have discovered a family in Turkey in which the five children walk on all fours because they’re unable to stand upright. They speculate that the children may have suffered a genetic disorder–their parents are noted as being closely related–and they’ve reverted to an instinctual form of human mobility.
Rather than walking on their knuckles, like gorillas or chimpanzees, they walk on the palms of their hands, with their fingers spread upwards.
Scientists believe this may be the way hominids moved to protect their fingers for more delicate movements.
Prof Humphrey said he thought the family had reverted to an instinctive form of behaviour encoded deep in the brain but abandoned during evolution.
He said: “I do not think they were destined to be quadrupeds by their genes, but their unique genetic make-up allowed them to be.
‘It has produced an extraordinary window on our past. It is physically possible, which no one would have guessed from the modern human skeleton.”
Study of their hands has shown they are heavily callused and have been walking like this for years.
Most bizarre.