# Rat thumbs?



## Grawrisher (Sep 10, 2013)

I've noticed that aris has almost half thumbs while penny has almost no thumbs do you spose there are people out there breeding for thumbs? When will we see rats with full thumbs? Will more people choose them as pets I they have thumbs?


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## Xerneas (Aug 6, 2013)

Rats certainly do not have thumbs, but it'd be incredible if they did. I do, however, have a feeling that rats are in some stage of beginning to develop thumbs? I can see a spot on all of my girls' paws where there's a stub for a thumb. If this is true we still probably won't be seeing thumbs for a long long time... But it would be awesome! They are skillled enough without thumbs already -- can't imagine what they'd get into with them.


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## Grawrisher (Sep 10, 2013)

I know! It just seem like penny ha a little stub while aris has almost half a thumb and they can reproduce at such a young age I feel like if somebody dedicated their life's work to it there's no reason to suspect we couldn't have thumb rats within the century


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## Sylver (Sep 5, 2013)

Eventually when I start breeding again (once I'm set up and have proper stock etc etc), this is actually one of the things I plan to breed for. Health and temperament are obvious, but with a focus on trainability and thumbs.


----------



## Grawrisher (Sep 10, 2013)

Whoo rat thumbs!!!! If you get some with full thumbs let me know!!

Imagine:
In a world where rats have thumbs they will be more like us an people will view them differently, like monkeys


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

Is that a real thing? Because what I would've thought was it going the evolutionarily _other_ way -- whales are what came to mind.


----------



## Grawrisher (Sep 10, 2013)

Well people are supposedly super advanced and we have thumbs, and rats are supposedly a lot like people so I think they're headed toward thumbs


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

Evolution works on what is best for the species, though. We need thumbs because we've no natural defense really.

Rats don't really have a need for thumbs. Everything else is perfectly designed for their needs. With aquatic mammals, their "thumbs" have all but gone away. Some think there is a potential for a new water/ground hybrid but I digress. 

Besides. We might as well hand over our prize of top species if rats get thumbs, they'll not have any real limits!


----------



## Grawrisher (Sep 10, 2013)

I question our "top species" status anyway

Bow down to your thumbed rat overlords!!!!


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## Sylver (Sep 5, 2013)

To get the trait back, it will have to be bred for specifically and painstakingly, and would take a lot of generations and very small measurements. 

Technically I think it would probably be easier to breed them into tiny handed little T-rexes or kangaroos to be honest (and you were some sort of mad scientist), but I think thumbs are doable, just very difficult. 

They won't breed back into it themselves unless there was something that prevented shorter thumbed rats from breeding as successfully while longer thumbed rats had some sort of advantage.


----------



## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

Speaking of t-rex hands, Canada _has_ figured out how to activate dormant dino genes in chickens. Maybe some devoted geneticist/biologist/rat breeder could activate the thumb gene (though it has the nasty side effect of DINOSAURS! http://cdn.omg-facts.com/2013/4/26/a16f0fbdfa0df18ac9e2c03773a8d81f )


----------



## Grawrisher (Sep 10, 2013)

Sylver said:


> To get the trait back, it will have to be bred for specifically and painstakingly, and would take a lot of generations and very small measurements.
> 
> Technically I think it would probably be easier to breed them into tiny handed little T-rexes or kangaroos to be honest (and you were some sort of mad scientist), but I think thumbs are doable, just very difficult.
> 
> They won't breed back into it themselves unless there was something that prevented shorter thumbed rats from breeding as successfully while longer thumbed rats had some sort of advantage.


I feel like if rats were larger then thumbs would prevail in nature...an we'd probably call them monkeys, because grabbing food would be harder with larger hands that didn't have thumbs, but at their size it's just fine to be thumbless, so natural selection isn't going to do it but selective breeding could

Bow down to your thumbed rat overlords!!


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Don't laugh, but there were once rodents the size of small cars in South America. Unfortunately they fell prey to large feline species that moved south from North America. Rats are the size they are for a very good reason. 

Fuzzy Rat had small thumbs I'm pretty sure she could use? I've never checked my others... will do it next time they wander by. I actually never thought about rats not having thumbs.... hmmm


----------



## Grawrisher (Sep 10, 2013)

I just kind of assumed they all had half thumbs like aris (I'm kin of obsessed with er little hands) but when I finally took a good look at penny's hands she ha almost no hands! I believe they used to have them that big! After all there are still cappibaras (my phone and I can't figure out how to spell it)


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## Grawrisher (Sep 10, 2013)

*thumbs

She Definately has hands


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## Xerneas (Aug 6, 2013)

Some rats do have very pronounced looking "thumbs" which is why it's leading me to believe they may be developing them... Or some may really truly have them already... If I'm thinking of the same thing it looks just like a little smooth bump where a thumb would be but not quite there yet. Strange.


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

Mine certainly have the proper amount of digits on their _hind_ paws but four fingers on the front. http://i.imgur.com/cUepfhX.jpg


----------

