I
am sitting on the deck watching the squirrels skip through the fallen leaves, searching
for something to steal. Squirrels are beastly vandals and unrepentant thieves.
At
this time of year they have intense interest in the flower gardens. They work
surreptitiously and I’m not sure what they are after, but I’ll find out when I
try to start the chainsaw or the snow blower.
They
love to hide their stolen goods in pieces of machinery. One year they stuffed
the carburetor of an old snowmobile, which caught fire when I tried to start
it.
Another
year they chewed two holes in the gas tank of my ATV. I don’t know if they were
into gas sniffing or just looking for another place to store their little treasures.
As
I watch them I notice that they seem to use one paw more than the other. I’ve
noticed this with raccoons, another nimble-fingered thieving species, who
appear to do a lot of work with their right paw.
This
gets me wondering: do animals, like humans, have a more dextrous side that they
prefer for certain tasks? In other words, are some left-pawed and some
right-pawed?
Most
humans are right-handed. Only 10 per cent are southpaws and more males than
females are left handed.
So
what about the squirrels and other critters of the forest? I consult Professor
Google and find an interesting article by two veterinary researchers from James
Cook University in Townsville, Australia.
The
article was distributed by a news service start-up called The Conversation,
which distributes articles from universities in Canada and other countries. The
articles are informative, interesting and free to read and use, and can be
found on the Internet at https://theconversation.com/ca.
The
researchers, Janice Lloyd and Richard Squires, write that many animals tend to
use one side of the body more than the other. Apes and chimps, for instance,
appear to be mainly right-handed.
They
say that research shows that most kangaroos are left-pawed. Horses, however,
tend to circle right, which seems odd considering that horse racing tracks
always seem to circle left.
Favouring
one side over another apparently is not exclusive to vertebrates. Snails also have
a form of laterality. The shells of some snails spiral in a left-handed direction,
while others have a right-handed direction. Snails with left-handed shell
spirals can mate only with other lefties and righties only with righties.
Another
interesting observation by the researchers is that many animals use the left eye and the left ear for
investigating items that are potentially frightening.
You can test whether your pet dog
or cat is a southpaw or right-pawed. The researchers say that to test your cat,
place a treat inside a glass and see which paw it uses to try to get the treat.
You can do a similar test for dogs but any dog I have known goes after a treat
with both paws.
If you really have too much spare
time you can test your dog to determine the meaning of its tail wagging.
Italian researchers did that and concluded that dogs wag their tails to the
right when they see something they want to approach and to the left when they
see something they want to avoid.
Does it really matter which paw or
hoof is dominant in a cat, dog or horse? Apparently so.
Laterality also refers to the
primary use of the right or left hemispheres of the brain. Determining
laterality could help in breeding and training animals.
For instance, information about
laterality could help determine which puppies will make the best service dogs. Or,
which racing horse will run best on clockwise or counter-clockwise race tracks.
(I thought all horse race tracks were left
curved but apparently not. Tracks in England centuries ago all were clockwise
but the Americans changed theirs to counter clockwise out of spite during the
American Revolution.)
At any rate, my wife says that it
does not matter whether squirrels are left- or right-handed. When she sees them
skipping through the flower beds she knows they are casing the place for a
night time raid for her freshly planted tulip bulbs. And it does not really
matter which paw they use to dig them.
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