[imagesource:imagineai]

One of the few advantages that humans have over other animals is our opposable thumbs.

The nifty handpiece allows us to grip and hold enough to make things from scratch, build whole societies, and defend ourselves against potential predators to protect us from quick demise.

We also have our unique brains. But, then again so do dolphins.

Even though our understanding of animal intelligence is continuously evolving, we know that dolphins are up there with us as they show social complexity, communication skills, problem-solving skills, tool use, and learning and memory abilities.

Add in a thumb-like fin, and they’re getting closer and closer to being a real competitor on this planet.

Indeed, scientists examining a unique society of mixed-species dolphins in Greece recently discovered a unique specimen with thumbs, reported VICE.

Thankfully, for our species, this particular dolphin’s thumbs are reportedly not moveable and resemble a pair of bottle openers embedded in its flippers.

Image: youtube/@pelagos.institute

The discovery was made by researchers from the Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute working in the Gulf of Corinth in Greece. Check out the finding at around the 2:50 mark:

The team found a few notable observations, like a common dolphin that adopted a ‘kidnapped’ striped dolphin, along with what they recorded as “a unique striped dolphin with thumbs on both its pectoral [flippers]”.

“The Gulf of Corinth is the only place in the world, where striped dolphins live in a semi-enclosed gulf, isolated from larger seas or oceans!” the researchers wrote in the video’s caption. “Together with common dolphins and Risso’s dolphins, they form a permanent mixed-species dolphin society.”

Live Science spoke to Alexandros Frantzis, president of the Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute, who said:

“It was the very first time we saw this surprising flipper morphology in 30 years of surveys in the open sea and also in studies while monitoring all the stranded dolphins along the coasts of Greece for 30 years.”

So does this mean dolphins are beginning to evolve into a world-dominating species to rival homo sapiens?

Lisa Noelle Cooper, a professor who specialises in mammalian anatomy and neurobiology at Northeast Ohio Medical University, said that it’s likely a genetic defect. But isn’t that kind of trial and error in the genetic ladder how humans developed to be the powerful creatures we are today?

Dolphins’ front limbs have a similar bone structure to our hands, the textbook example of the evolutionary concept of homologous structures, but instead cells form around them to form flippers.

If this dolphin with thumb-like flippers does well in the wild, then who knows, years and years from now, dolphins can evolve to have actual thumbs like us.

[source:vice]