Only humans can form the full locked fist because of how our fingers are shorter and thumbs longer in ratio to palm size compared with apes. Apes do 'punch' but because of their hand shape they cannot form a locked fist as we do. Their punches are done with looser fists and this is likely to be less effective that a human punch. According to Morgan and Carrier whose paper I looked up first, the ape punch is less effective and often more of a palm punch, and they suggest that we too fought the same way until our hands changed shape. However, because apes are generally far stronger than we humans I wouldn't like to try and put it to the test. One slap from an ape would hammer a dozen of my punches... especially as they're girly ones ;)
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