%0 Journal Article %J Folia Primatol (Basel) %D 2017 %T Laterality of Grooming and Tool Use in a Group of Captive Bonobos (Pan paniscus). %A Brand, CM %A Marchant, LF %A Boose, KJ %A White, FJ %A Rood, TM %A Meinelt, A %X

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.

%B Folia Primatol (Basel) %V 88 %P 210-222 %@ 0015-5713 %G eng %U https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28803242 %M 28803242