Kangaroos are All Left-Handed: Humans Aren't All That Unique

Most humans may be right-handed-but the opposite is true for kangaroos. All of these marsupials are left-handed, according to new research.

Previously, researchers thought that "true"-handedness, which means predictably using one hand over the other, was a feature that was exclusive to primates. This latest study, though, shows otherwise.

"We found a pronounced degree of handedness in an animal group only distantly related to humans," said Yego Malaschichev, a zoologist at Saint Petersburg State University, in an interview with The Verge.

Malasichev's interest in handedness actually goes back at least a decade, when he reported differences in handedness between jumping and walking frogs. Since then, he's looked at handedness in bipedal kangaroos.

The researchers spent time observing kangaroos-seven species in all. These species included red-necked wallabies, Goodfellow's tree kangaroo, the eastern grey kangaroo, and the red kangaroo. The researchers watched the animals as they groomed themselves, grabbed food with their paws, and leaned on their forearms while feeding on grass.

In the end, the researchers found that kangaroos preferred their left hands over their right hands. Red-necked wallabies, though, prefer their left hand for some tasks and their right hand for others.

The findings are unexpected. Unlike other mammals, kangaroos lack the same neural circuitry that bridges the left and right hemispheres of the brain. However, it seems as if they do possess this particular feature, which may reveal a bit more about the evolution of these species.

The findings were published in the journal Current Biology.

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