Most Kangaroos Are Lefties Say Researchers
Malashichev’s interest in handedness goes back at least a decade, when he reported differences in handedness between jumping and walking frogs. Those studies showed that jumping frogs less often show handedness than do walking frogs. His team later showed subtle signs of handedness in marsupials that walk on all fours, including gray short-tailed opossums and sugar gliders, which differed by sex. But no one had taken a careful look at different species of bipedal kangaroos.
Courtesy of Andrey Giljov and the National Geographic Society
“What we observed in reality we did not initially expect,” Malashichev says. “But the more we observed, the more it became obvious that there is something really new and interesting in the wild.”
They found that wild kangaroos show a natural preference for their left hands when performing particular actions–grooming the nose, picking a leaf, or bending a tree branch, for example. Left-handedness was particularly apparent in eastern grey and red kangaroos.
This is a red-necked wallaby manipulating food with one forelimb.
The findings should encourage more careful study of the marsupial brain, which differs from those of other mammals in many respects. Such studies might even yield important insight into neuropsychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia and autism, the researchers say, noting links between those disorders and handedness.
The researchers will continue to explore handedness in other species that stand upright regularly or from time to time. “This will give us a better resolution for the evolutionary interpretations,” Malashichev says.
Contacts and sources:
The National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration supported the fieldwork done in this study.
Current Biology, Giljov et al.:” Parallel Emergence of True Handedness in the Evolution of Marsupials and Placentals” http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.05.043
Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/2015/06/most-kangaroos-are-lefties-say.html
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