Life
Chimps are righties and orangutans lefties, plus singing mice and chilly dinosaurs in this week's news
By Science News
Apes show handedness
Contrary to earlier reports, apes show humanlike hand preferences when
manipulating objects. Chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas favored the
right hand and orangutans the left hand, a team led by psychologist
William Hopkins of Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Ga., found in a study
to appear in the
Journal of Human Evolution
. Hopkins and colleagues
observed which hand 777 captive apes used to reach peanut butter smeared
inside a long tube. Roughly twice as many animals in each ape category
employed a dominant hand, whereas about 90 percent of humans are
right-handed. Hopkins wants to explore reasons for orangutans’
left-handedness. —