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Laterality of Grooming and Tool Use in a Group of Captive Bonobos (Pan paniscus)

Folia Primatologica, ISSN: 1421-9980, Vol: 88, Issue: 2, Page: 210-222
2017
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Article Description

Humans exhibit population level handedness for the right hand; however, the evolution of this behavioral phenotype is poorly understood. Here, we compared the laterality of a simple task (grooming) and a complex task (tool use) to investigate whether increasing task difficulty elicited individual hand preference among a group of captive bonobos (Pan paniscus). Subjects were 17 bonobos housed at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. Laterality of grooming was recorded using group scans; tool use was recorded using all-occurrence sampling. Grooming was characterized as unimanual or bimanual, and both tasks were scored as right-handed or left-handed. Most individuals did not exhibit significant hand preference for unimanual or bimanual (asymmetrical hand use) grooming, although 1 individual was lateralized for each. For the 8 subjects who engaged in termite fishing enough for statistical testing, 7 individuals exhibited significant laterality and strong individual hand preference. Four subjects preferred their left hand, 3 preferred their right, and 1 had no preference. Grooming, a simple behavior, was not lateralized in this group, yet a more complex behavior revealed a strong individual hand preference, and these results are congruent with other recent findings that demonstrate complex tasks elicit hand preference in bonobos.

Bibliographic Details

Brand, Colin M; Marchant, Linda F; Boose, Klaree J; White, Frances J; Rood, Tabatha M; Meinelt, Audra

Brill

Agricultural and Biological Sciences

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