A particular case of quadruped humans found in a remote village in Turkey , near the border with Syria, urged the scientific community to formulate a series of theories, all of them interesting, among which they speculated that the family that walks on all fours it was the product of a retrospective stage of evolution. However, after extensive analysis this possibility has been ruled out. Meet the Ulas family and what science has discovered about their strange condition.
Los Ulas, a family that walks on all fours
The Ulas family is numerous, comprising 19 children and parents, of which five of the brothers have a rare condition that has forced them to move in a manner similar to the crawling of bears. They became world famous in 2006 when the BBC documented this family that walks on all fours . They did it so naturally that one of the theories proposed by geneticists was based on the fact that this unusual behavior corresponded to a backward evolution, even mentioning that the finding was a kind of "missing link", since it was not common to see something like this in anatomically intact humans.
Uner Tan, an evolutionary biologist at the Faculty of Medicine of Çukurova University in Andana, Turkey , visited in 2005 the family that walks on all fours in order to observe and analyze quadruped humans together with a team of neurologists, physiologists and psychologists, discovering this rare condition described as " Uner Tan syndrome " (UTS). The individuals identified with the "Uner Tan Syndrome" exhibit characteristics similar to those of our primate ancestors in walking, for adaptive reasons, and not due to a retrospective stage of evolution as initially proposed.
In fact, as parents share, Resit and Hatice, when the five siblings were babies, crawled normally, that is, leaning on the knees and hands. But as they grew, trying to get up they lost their balance and fell . It was really difficult for them to stay on two feet, therefore, to compensate for the disability, they began to move with their legs stretched out and their palms on the ground.
The specialists explained that the reason behind this unusual physical disability is a genetic abnormality . However, the diagnosis of three of the brothers was "cerebellar ataxia", a congenital defect characterized by a lack of balance and coordination that makes it difficult to move with the support of the legs. In addition, those who suffer from it show reduced language, severe mental retardation and a stooped posture even when sitting.
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