New research claims that our ancient ancestors laid eggs; Therefore, women develop wider hips than men.
The study by Barbara Fisher and colleagues at the University of Vienna stated that the difference between the pelvis in women and men is the most reliable way to differentiate between the sexes. Over the years, it has been believed that the reason behind the wider pelvis in women is to allow the passage of infants with wider heads, therefore, taking the baby out of the hips. But the new study in Nature Ecology and Evolution gives a further explanation than delivery for the wider pelvis in women.
This cites the example of Virginia opossum females that have broad hips despite giving birth to young children because their offspring are one thousandth of the size of the mother. The study provides evidence that the large hips have an ancient evolutionary history that may have stemmed from the study of chimps.
Chimpanzees are considered to be our closest ancestors and their females have wider hips than males, even though chimpanzees give birth more easily than humans, meaning that wider pelvis was present along the way back. Comparing the human pelvis to our closest animal relatives, researchers discovered that the pattern of sex difference is the same.
talking to daily Mail, Fisher states that he analyzed the 3D data of the pelvis for these two species and found that they show similar patterns of sex differences, despite the large overall species difference.
According to him, the similarity suggests that the wider pelvis in women was already present like a common human ancestor that shares two species and that the method of childbirth may be different for our ancestors.
Researchers suggest that wider hips were already present in early mammals and may be intended to lay larger eggs relative to adult body size.
Fisher points out that the study suggests that the evolutionary form of sexual dimorphic pelvis (the difference between the sexes) has not been developed by modern humans, but is inherited from our ancestors and is in fact early mammals (amniotes) (birds). And other animals such as animals) may stem from reptiles), which laid large eggs and gave birth to large embryos.
Research claims that the evolutionary mechanisms that allow for wider hips have been left in the human code, and that genetic and developmental mechanisms were not already required to be re-developed to develop a more massive female pelvis. .
