Chimpanzee – Use of Hands in Mobility – Wednesday May 8th 2024

Chimpanzee – Use of Hands in Mobility – Wednesday May 8th 2024

Due to my delay in walking, I have some experience in the use of hands in mobility.

I happened to glance at the TV last night and noticed chimpanzees using the backs of their hands.

Recently, there was an article focussed on a family with ataxia based issues effecting their mobility.

When moving about using the palms of your hands, it would be common, I expect, to see the fingers being held up so they are not touching the floor. This is not a comfortable position for the hands, if this method was required all of the time. Nor does it permit good vision of the environment and those around you.

It may already be known, but it occurs to me that chimpanzees using the backs of their hands allows them to keep the using side of their hands clean as well as free from cuts and splinters etc. It also allows for a more upright posture, the head is upright at a more comfortable angle to turn the head for viewing and it is less tiring on the legs and back when scooting about. Therefore, the back of their hands are furry certainly, but must callous from an early age, allowing them to use their hands in this way.

When Chimpanzees do stand, their arms have unusual movements when not being used, ie., to grasp something for example, which I would put down to movements memory or lack of, because they use their arms in the learnt way necessary for their specific needs. Hence it’s a fluid, smooth movement when they are in their normal gait. Because they use their hands this way, their legs have to move in a way that accommodates the hands needing to be in front.

If humans had to use hands to move about long long ago, they would have needed to use the backs of their hands. This allows to keep them cleaner, protecting the surface of the inner side from injuries, quicker movement and better view, which would have been vital.

I was eventually able to walk when I reached my second birthday, but there were still times when I needed to be lower to the ground. When balance and vision improved, on those occasions when I would still need to get lower to the ground, it was in the sitting posture and would move down a staircase on my bottom.

The backs of our hands aren’t furry now,  more defined and sensitive, leaving the palms as the better option when affected by problems related to mobility through balance etc.

I’ve not studied primates so I’m not familiar with what is known by us, so in case the following is already in literature…? The reason for primates natural use of hands in mobility, in my view, is because they’re meant to climb all their lives, with arms that can hold their own weight with ease. So their arms are natural for mobility and their gait on the ground is similar to their climbing gait. A chimpanzee without arms would have to run and walk as we do. They would use their mouth for tasks, just as we do when we have loss of our arms.

Fiona MacLeod (C)