If you're ever going to commit a crime, frame a koala
Their fingerprints are almost indistinguishable from ours.
In 1975, the fingerprints from two orangutans and six chimpanzees housed in England zoos were taken by the police. The reason? They were looking to see whether any of their unsolved crimes were linked to these primates. To no one’s surprise, there were no matches. But our primate cousins aren’t the only ones that share similar fingerprints to us humans.
When we think of koalas, we think of these adorable tree-climbing marsupials native to Australia that spend majority of their time sleeping and eating eucalyptus leaves. For some weridos like me, I remember them having three vaginas and a forked penis (yes, I’m super weird).
But we don’t realise how remarkably similar their fingerprints are to ours. They are so virtually indistinguishable even under a microscope, that forensic examiners might confuse the two.
In saying so, there have been no actual cases reported of koala fingerprints confusing crime scene investigators (I kind of wish there was).
Human and koala fingerprints share similar patterns of ridges, loops, and arches. The reason for this is convergent evolution, where unrelated species independently evolve similar traits as a result of having to adapt to similar environments or ecological niches, not because they share a common ancestry. An example of this is dolphins and bats. While dolphins and bats are very different species, both use echolocation to navigate and hunt for their food.
In the case of us and our tree-climbing marsupials, our fingerprints serve two purposes. They help us grip and hold onto rough surfaces. And they increase the sensitivity of our touch so we can feel the shape and texture of things we come into contact with.
For koalas, this increased sensitivity is particularly important as being fussy eaters, it helps them identify the specific eucalyptus leaves that they eat. Fun fact: despite there being over 700 species of eucalyptus trees in Australia, koalas will only feed on around 40 species.
Based on what we both use our fingerprints for, it’s no surprised that we both independently evolved these traits. And we humans like to extend our use of our fingerprints for other things…
So, if you’re ever going to commit a crime, my recommendation is to frame it on a koala. That’s only if you get can your hands on one.