Ninety percent of us areright - handed , with the druthers appearing in the uterus and nine - tenths of infant suckle their correct quarter round . But what about other animals?Toads are right - handed , kangaroostend to be lefties , and dogswag their tail coat to the odd or rightdepending on their climate . Now a new subject area confirms that bottlenose dolphins run to the right , even more so than we do .
A team led by Florida’sDolphin Communication Projectrecently assessed the feeding behavior ofbottlenose dolphinsoff Bimini in the Bahamas . In especial , they wait at volcanic crater feeding , a tactic that involves a dolphin swim low against the seafloor , identifying a concealed morsel using “ razor bombilation ” echolocation pawl , and then grab it out of the sand with its recollective snout .
Just before the dolphins plunge at their prey , they lay off swimming forward and quickly gyrate to the side in a 90 to 180 - degree turn . But which side do they opt ?
To regain out , the researchers record 709 turns made by at least 27 different dolphins between 2012 and 2018 . Overall , 705 of these turning , equating to 99.44 percent , were to the left , with just one lone dolphin turning to the right a total of four time .
wrestle to the left hand actually suggests a right - side bias , because it localise the dolphinfish ’s correct side and correct optic closely to the ocean floor as it hunt . The researcher consider that this preference may be concern to more sensitive eyesight in the right optic or the fact that dolphins lean to get echo sounding clicks using the phonetic backtalk on their correct side .
The unique mahimahi that spun to the right had an abnormally shaped right pectoral fin , but this is n’t necessarily the cause of its strange lateralization as another dolphinfish had a damage good fin while a third had no right fin , yet these two animals still turned to the left .
The authors note that bottlenose dolphin are n’t the only cetacean to exhibit a preference for their right side when employing certain alimentation strategy . Dusky dolphins , orcas , and fin , hunchback , blue , Bryde ’s , sei , andgray whalesall do too . Meanwhile , the majority ofGanges river dolphin , an endangered and subtle species that ’s pretty much blind , float right side down , continuously echolocating as they move . It ’s also been document in various birds and Fish .
The team cerebrate the dolphins may be biased due to thelateralization of their brains . The right-hand eye corresponds to the left one-half of the brain , and the animals may be better at processing information pile up through mountain and echolocation in their left hemisphere . Previous study have found that dolphin perform well at visuospatial , numerosity , and convention discrimination project when using their correct eye .
However , to find out just what ease up the dolphins their right - side bias when feeding , we need more inquiry . “ Advances in non - invasive brain imaging techniques concord the potential difference to further explore the radio link between behavioural dominance and hemispheric specialization and sensory and cognitive processing , ” the researchers write inRoyal Society Open Science .
