PARIS: A group of Russian scientists have been surprised to discover most kangaroos are left-handed, challenging existing understanding of marsupials.
Yegor Malashichev, an evolutionary biologist at Saint Petersburg State University, studied handedness in animals for more than a decade before travelling to Australia to study kangaroos in the wild.
While previous studies have been examined on kangaroos in captivity, none has been able to produce conclusive evidence.
“The more we observed the more it became obvious that there was something really new and interesting in the wild,” Dr Malashichev said.
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“We observed a remarkable consistency in responses across bipedal species in that they all prefer to use the left, not the right hand.”
Dr Malashichev and his team discovered kangaroos routinely used their left paws to perform particular tasks such as grooming, picking leaves, or bending branches.
His report, published in the Current Biology journal, found left-handedness was especially apparent in the larger eastern grey and red kangaroos.
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