@article {315572, title = {Laterality of Grooming and Tool Use in a Group of Captive Bonobos (Pan paniscus).}, journal = {Folia Primatol (Basel)}, volume = {88}, number = {2}, year = {2017}, pages = {210-222}, abstract = {

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.

}, isbn = {0015-5713}, url = {https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28803242}, author = {Brand, CM and Marchant, LF and Boose, KJ and White, FJ and Rood, TM and Meinelt, A} }