[Science] Kangaroos are 'left-handed'

[ddude_stnom]

Most kangaroos are 'left-handed'

Wild kangaroos tend to favour their left hands during common tasks like grooming and feeding, a study suggests.

The researchers say this is the first demonstration of population-level "handedness" in a species other than humans, who are mostly right-handed.

The evidence comes from hours spent observing multiple species in the wild.

Two species of roo and one wallaby all showed the left-handed trend; some other marsupials, which walk on all fours, did not show the same bias.

The research, published in the journal Current Biology, was conducted by Russian scientists from St Petersburg

Senior author Dr Yegor Malashichev said there had been a "widespread notion" that handedness was a uniquely human phenomenon, until research in the last 10-20 years showed that asymmetry in behaviour and brain structure was surprisingly widespread.

But examples of left- or right-handedness tended to be specific to particular behaviours, and were not consistent across a population.

The animals were observed in the wild, in Tasmania and New South Wales

"As one of our reviewers pointed out, laterality is also obvious in how parrots hold their food or how your dog shakes hands," Ms Ingram said. "But these examples of lateralisation have not been proven at the population level."