Throughout Avatar and its sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, human Avatars are shown to have five fingers, while the indigenous Na'vi only have four. James Cameron brought audiences back to Pandora in December 2022 with the much-anticipated follow-up. Avatar: The Way of Water picked up over a decade after the first film in narrative as well as release date, showing Jake and Neytiri living happily with their growing family before humanity re-enters their lives. Avatar introduced the idea of remote-piloted Na'vi Avatars — lab-grown bodies designed to allow human scientists to interact with the native Na'vi, and to explore Pandora much more thoroughly.

At first glance, it would be hard to determine which bodies were Avatars and which were Na'vi, as they both share strikingly similar features including their height, coloring, bone structure, and hair, however, there is one major difference between them. While the Na'vi have evolved to have four fingers on each hand,...