• Question: what would happen if cats grew thums?

    Asked by sufmed to Chris, Eva, Michael, Paddy, Philip on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Philip Denniff

      Philip Denniff answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      it would be able to open its own tin of cat food.

    • Photo: Paddy Brock

      Paddy Brock answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      i reckon they’d start climbing trees more often and become a little bit like the lemurs of madagascar…
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00dtq1q

    • Photo: Chris Jordan

      Chris Jordan answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      My cats can already open the fridge door (I had to put kiddy locks on it), and they can open doors with lever handles. I hate to think what they’d get up to with thumbs.

      Edited after I read Phil’s post, to add: I wouldn’t mind if they managed to open the fridge as long as they learnt how to close it as well.

    • Photo: Michael Wharmby

      Michael Wharmby answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      If Paddy is right, I pity the birds in those trees!
      Thumbs would allow cats to pick things up and use them as tools, but that doesn’t mean they would. Animals need a certain amount of intelligence/brain wiring to use tools. And you don’t need thumbs to use tools. New Caledonian Crows are famed for their use of certain shaped stones for certain tasks – this is tool usage – but they carry the stones in their beaks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Caledonian_Crow

      A new meaning to birdbrained…

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