Hannah Griebling

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I always tell people, you know, there's some people that think like, oh, they can like pick a lock and get it open.

You know, they're not there.

They're not there yet, but they certainly are really excellent problem solvers.

And their main adaptation for foraging, which in the natural environment, they would be foraging.

So the common misconception, they don't actually have a true thumb.

It is a common misconception.

So to have a true thumb, you have to have this right angle here when your thumb sticks out to the side like primates and humans do.

Yeah, exactly.

That fifth digit just sits up by their what would be our index finger.

So it sticks out a little bit, but it's not a true thumb at that right angle.

But they still have a ton of dexterity in those forepaws, primarily because when they are foraging in their natural environments, they are feeling around in streams and in leaf litter and things like that.

And so

They have a lot of nerve endings in those forepaws.

And so that is like their main sense, the main way that they gather information about their environment and they capture food.

And so that adaptation sets them up really well to live alongside us because they are able to manipulate objects in their environment in the same way that humans are.

So even without that thumb, they are pretty dexterous, but there is a limit to what they can open, certainly.

Yeah, so that was the really interesting finding that we had for this study.

So we were looking, we already knew from previous work done with raccoons that they would engage in what we call repeated innovation.

So if you give them a puzzle box with multiple entry points, multiple problems for them to solve...