From Dilys Roe
I was interested to read the article by Peter Aldhous about humpback whales “leaning to the right”, in which he describes how handedness is perceived as being a uniquely human attribute, with the biases developed by other animals appearing to develop at random (New Scientist, Science, 5 August).
While investigating the behavioural ecology of parrots a few years ago, a number of papers I came across discussed “footedness” in parrots. It seems that most parrots are left-footed, always favouring this side when holding food and manipulating objects. This phenomenon is not random, but appears with the regularity of right-handedness in humans.
Until reading Aldhous’s article I had assumed that this was an accepted behavioural fact and was unaware that such controversy over left-right bias existed.
