Scientists say four-legged Aulas 'shouldn't exist'

All families have their own quirks and customs, but one group of relatives has a trait so unique that scientists have described it as a complete anomaly for the human race.

The Aulas have been the subject of evolutionary fascination for years after they were discovered in a remote village in Türkiye walking on all fours.

In the early 2000s, a scientific paper was published about five Aulas siblings and their strange bear-crawling style of movement, with experts divided on the cause of this anomaly.

In the years after the paper was published, evolutionary psychologist Professor Nicholas Humphrey, of the London School of Economics (LSE), traveled to Türkiye to meet the unusual family.

Aulas' mother and father had 18 children, however, only six of them were born quadrupedal (walking on all fours), which has never been seen before in modern adult humans.

The skin on the palms of their hands is as thick as the skin on their feet60 Minutes Australia

“I never expected that even under the most extraordinary science fiction, modern humans could revert to the animal state,” Humphrey said. 60 Minutes Australiawho made a documentary about the family in 2018.

He added: “The thing that distinguishes us from the rest of the animal world is the fact that we are the species that walks on two legs and holds our heads high in the air.”

“Of course, it's language and all sorts of other things as well, but it's very important to our sense of ourselves as different from others in the animal kingdom. These people are crossing those boundaries.”

The documentary describes the aulas as “the missing link between man and ape” and suggests that they “shouldn't exist” at all.

However, no one has yet been able to figure out the exact cause of the strange walking style.

While some experts have suggested it's caused by a genetic problem that “undid the last three million years of evolution,” others have rejected the idea of ​​a specific “gene” for upright walking and suggested that something else is at play.

Humphrey noted that the affected siblings — five of whom are still alive and range in age from 22 to 38 — all suffer from some form of brain damage.

in 60 minutes A documentary film showed MRI scans that revealed they each had a shrunken part of the brain called the cerebellar vermis.

However, the professor also pointed out that this in itself “[doesn’t] Calculating their walking on all fours.

He explained: “Other children who have damage to the cerebellum, even children who do not have a cerebellum, can still walk upright.”

He also stressed that Ulas' form of quadrupedal walking differs from that seen in our closest animal relatives – chimpanzees and gorillas – in one key way.

While these monkeys walk on their knuckles, Turkish children use the palms of their hands – putting their weight on their wrists while lifting their fingers off the ground.

“The big thing about this is that chimpanzees damage their toes when they walk this way,” Humphrey said. BBC News The website dates back to 2006 when it was BBC He aired his own documentary about the family.

The Family That Walks on Four – Complete Documentarywww.youtube.com

He added: “These children have maintained the flexibility of their fingers. For example, the girls in the family can do crochet and embroidery.”

Humphrey hypothesized that this might actually be the way our direct ancestors walked.

By keeping their fingers nimble, our early ancestors were also able to manipulate tools, which was crucial to the evolution of the human body and intelligence.

“I think it's possible that what we're seeing in this family is something consistent with a time when we didn't walk like chimpanzees but was an important step between coming down from the trees and becoming fully bipedal,” Humphrey told the News. location.

The LSE researcher also suggested that there are more fundamental explanations for the Aulas babies' quadrupedal movement: they simply were not encouraged to walk on two legs.

In the Turkish village where they grew up, there was no local health service to help disabled children go from crawling like babies (on hands and knees) to walking completely upright.

Humphrey said 60 minutes He provided the Ulasis with a walking frame and within a few hours “an astonishing transformation occurred.”

“Children who have never taken an upright step on two feet [used] “This frame of walking across the room with such joy on their faces and such a sense of accomplishment,” he recalls, adding that it was as if they had “suddenly made a breakthrough into a world they never imagined they could enter.”

The bars were installed in the Olas home to encourage family members to walk upright60 Minutes Australia

He said seeing their enthusiasm for walking upright with the help of physical therapists gave him “a renewed respect for the human spirit.”

He said it helped him see “how human beings in the most disadvantaged circumstances can triumph over their adversity, no matter what they have to do to maintain their pride and sense of self.”

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