Rodlox wrote:
that's it? that ranks up there with "abbreviation" when it comes to things not being as big as their word suggests.
so basically, the epicanthic fold is why Caucasians (who lack it) have folds and wrinkles around our eyes when our eyes are open; while people who have epicanthic folds, in contrast, don't have anything like that to disturb the smoothness of their skin.
Sort of. If you mean the fold on the eyelid itself, in some people with epicanthic folds, the crease of that fold is basically even with the edge of the eyelid when the eyes are open, resulting in "single eyelids". In others, it can be further up and visible, just like many people without epicanthic folds, resulting in "double eyelids"*. You could almost consider the whole thing a continuum from straight up single eyelids at one end all the way to "hooded eyes" (where the folding is so far back you can hardly see it, and the round eyes seem "hooded" by the brow) on the other.
Yeah, I spend way too much time looking at eyes.
*PS: My sister-in-law's mother is one of many East Asians who actually underwent surgery to turn her single eyelids into double eyelids, as it is considered more beautiful in East Asian cultures (I disagree with that).
okay. i always thought that was a cool feature...never thought it had a name.
There are a lot of features with interesting names. I'm still looking for a living person with "shovel-shaped incisors". It's apparently a
Homo erectus trait that I've heard still exists in some Asian and American Indian populations.
Just yeah, a skin fold and straight up bone are not the same thing.
not the bone...the skin next to it...I did compare it to an umbrella or a shade, right? my computer left me wondering if that edit went through.
take your index finger and place it against your nose where the nose meets the eye socket/brow ridge...the spot your fingertip is occupying - I'd noticed people with skin right there. (so we're all on the same page)
Yeah, that would be an epicanthic fold, I think. I was referring to the pictures I saw of Minbari. It looked like the prosthetics there were meant to suggest a bony structure there, rather than just folds of skin. As such, the structure Minbari show doesn't seem to appear in humans (at least not modern humans). Thus, the comment that Minbari have larger epicanthic folds than humans is suspect. Besides that, I tend to leave fictional aliens out of my definitions of human morphology*.
*Morphology in the biological sense, not the linguistic one.