Watching our friendly Common Fiscal, Meneer, eating a tiny block of cheese led me to wonder if birds are the equivalent of left- or right-handed. Certainly this and the ringed Common Fiscal, Spotty, both hold food in their right claws when eating.
Holding onto the block of cheese.
The first bite tastes alright.
A fine breakfast this is.
Something Over Tea 
I never would have thought of that!
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I hadn’t either, which is why I couldn’t resist posting these pictures after having watched these birds for a few days and realising that they gripped food with the same claw each time.
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Hypothesis:
Handedness (or footedness) makes sense in that it saves on brain circuitry. Being ambidextrous implies co-opting more brain circuitry.
Predictions:
1) The more manual dexterity is required in everyday life, the more pronounced the handedness is likely to be.
2) Creatures not depending on manual dexterity will not show handedness and brain circuitry is not expected to show areas more dedicated to any hand (or foot), e.g. Ostrich, elephant, antelope.
3) So one would expect monkeys, and apes to show handedness and more so tool making humans.
After writing this I did a search and it seems there are many studies about this.
Here’s one:
https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/do-other-animals-show-handedness/
It says chimps are 60-70% right handed.
And Another:
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-percentage-of-the-world-population-are-left-handed.html
It says that 98% humans are right handed,
Thanks for making me think about this! (I’m mostly left handed but completely right footed!)
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Thank you for this fascinating response. Elephants are apparently left- or right-tusked. You can tell by the fact the most used tusk tends to be shorter than the other. I am certainly going to observe the habits of other birds more closely.
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Interesting, I bet there is something to that!
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There might be; I will need to hone my observation skills!
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A good question.
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It is good to ponder such things.
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Curious, I wonder…
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Keep a keen lookout and see what you can come up with.
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Never thought about it. What a cute tubby little fellow!
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It receives a lot of food – mostly for its chicks though.
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He certainly has a very strong grip on his block of cheese!
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I have long been fascinated by the way it grips any kind of food to eat – only recently have I wondered about left- and right-handedness of birds.
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Cute photos.
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Thank you, Christa.
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Interessant. Ek verbeel my dat honde eerder hulle linkerpoot gee, wat ek altyd gedink het dat hulle stewiger staan op hulle regterpoot?
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Van nou af sal jy seker vir honde goed dophou.
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According to the fine fellows who study such things:
Rats: “Using the traditional food-reaching test, we found that of 144 rats, 72.7% were right-handed, 19.7% left-handed, and 7.6% mixed-handed”
Mice: “data revealed that a) approximately half of the mice were right-handed and half left-handed, b) most of the mice were strongly lateralized and c) females were more lateralized than males”
✨🙏🕉🌱🌿🌳🌻💚🕊☯🐉✨
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This is very interesting information, thank you for adding it to our pot of communal knowledge.
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What a fascinating question
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I watched the two fiscals closely today: both used their right claw to hold larger pieces of food to eat from.
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Very interesting indeed. We are currently looking after a African Grey and he also loves cheese. He uses his left claw to hold it. Every time. 😀
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This is an interesting observation too.
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😊
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