Sentences with phrase «opposable big toe»

Not exact matches

But as they moved out of the trees and began walking upright on the ground in the past 5 million years or so, the foot had to become more stable, and bit by bit, the big toe, which was no longer opposable, aligned itself with the other toes and our ancestors developed an arch to work as a shock absorber.

It lacks an arch and has an opposable, or grasping, big toe, like living apes, says Yohannes Haile - Selassie, a paleoanthropologist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Ohio and the lead author of the new study, which appears online today in Nature.

Orangutans are the swivel - hipped aerialists of the ape world, with ankle - length arms built for sky - walking, opposable thumbs and big toes, swervy knees, and bowed ankles.