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What looks like the thumb on six-fingered moles is really a giant wrist bone that develops separately from the five true fingers. Steve Mirsky reports
史蒂夫．米爾斯基報道說，六指鼴鼠身上看起來像大姆指的東西其實是從五只真正的手指分離而長出的一只巨大手腕骨。
Former major league pitcher Antonio Alfonseca had six fingers on each hand. One of his coaches was once asked about the consequences of Alfonseca having six fingers and replied, “He can’t flip you off.” Think about it.
前主要聯盟投手安東尼．奧芬西卡每只手長了六根手指。他的一個教練曾被問及奧芬西卡長有六根手指的影響時答道：“他沒法用手指彈你。”你想想看。
Well, neither can many moles. Because most individuals of the type called talpid moles also apparently have six fingers on each foot. Or at least it looks that way. Now a study shows that they really only have the regular old five true fingers. The real thumb looks like the other four fingers, and what appears to be the thumb is actually a much larger-than-normal version of the radial sesamoid bone of the wrist. The finding is in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. [Christian Mitgutsch et al., "Circumenting the polydactyly ‘constraint’: The mole’s ‘thumb’"]
這個，許多鼴鼠也不會。因為這種叫talpid鼴鼠的大多數個體也很明顯地在每只腳上長了六根指頭?；蛘咧辽偎瓷先ト绱恕，F在一份研究表明鼴鼠事實上規則而老一套地僅長著五個真手指。那根真大姆指看上去跟其他四根沒什么兩樣，而且看似大姆指的東西實際上是一只比正常大小大得多的腕部橈籽骨。這項發現來自英國皇家學會雜志《生物學快報》。
The fake thumb has no joints, a dead giveaway that it’s not a real finger. And molecular markers show that the five true fingers develop together in a mole embryo, with the outsized sesamoid cropping up later. The arrangement is probably an advantage for an animal that spends a lot of time digging. And doesn’t convey displeasure with hand signals.
這根山寨大姆指沒有關節，所以說不是真手指，只是不發揮作用的贈品而已。而且分子標記顯示五個真手指在鼴鼠胚胎中一起長出來的，后來突然長出了這只特大籽骨。這樣安排很可能有利于要長時間挖土的動物。而且對這種安排，手指沒有傳出不滿的信號。
