All Koalas » paw http://www.allkoalas.com All about koalas Sat, 17 Jul 2010 08:37:33 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Koala Fingerprints http://www.allkoalas.com/koala-fingerprints-490 http://www.allkoalas.com/koala-fingerprints-490#comments Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:39:09 +0000 Captain-Koala http://www.allkoalas.com/?p=490
The Koala is one of the few mammals that has fingerprints. In fact, koala fingerprints are remarkably similar to human fingerprints; even with an electron microscope, it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the two.

As shown by Henneberg & als from the Department of Anatomical Sciences, University of Adelaide, koalas have very human-like fingerprints. The main difference is that the entire human palm and fingers are covered with ridges while the koala only has ridges on its fingertips and some areas of the palm.

These similarities between Koalas and Humans is an example of coincidental evolution.

Sources:
Fingerprint homoplasy: koalas and humans – http://naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-04/ns_hll.html

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