By Susan Milius
Rock ants show a lefty bias when picking which way to turn in strange, dark places.
The tiny, crevice-dwelling Temnothorax albipennis ants don’t have hands, of course, but a tendency similar to handedness shows up in choosing the direction to turn when exploring, Edmund R. Hunt of the University of Bristol in England found in lab tests. The ants also have a tendency to follow a wall, but when willing to step away from it show a leftist bias, Hunt and his colleagues report December 24 in Biology Letters.