Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Unit,German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077, Göttingen, Germany; Courant Research Center "Evolution of Social Behavior", University of Göttingen, Germany.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2014 Jan;153(1):61-7. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.22403. Epub 2013 Oct 30.
The dominant use of one hand is a striking feature of humans, but manual lateralization can be found in a variety of other species as well. In primates, the lateralization in hand use varies among species and several theories such as the "postural origin," "task complexity," or "development theory" have been suggested to explain this variation. In order to contribute comparative data on this phenomenon from a basal primate, we studied manual lateralization in wild redfronted lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons). Data were collected on four groups at Kirindy Forest, western Madagascar, during spontaneous actions and by confronting them with artificial feeding boxes. The lemurs did not exhibit manual lateralization on a group level in either condition. More individuals showed a hand preference in the experimental task, and the preferences were stronger compared to spontaneous actions. The direction of individual hand preferences was not consistent across the two conditions. The results of this study show that measuring manual laterality in different contexts can yield different results. Manual lateralization in wild redfronted lemurs therefore seems to be flexible and situation dependent and probably not ecologically relevant in their natural habitat.
惯用手的使用是人类的一个显著特征，但这种手部的偏侧性也存在于其他多种物种中。在灵长类动物中，手部使用的偏侧性在不同物种之间存在差异，为了解释这种差异，提出了几种理论，如“姿势起源”“任务复杂性”或“发展理论”。为了从基础灵长类动物中提供关于这种现象的比较数据，我们研究了野生红额狐猴（Eulemur rufifrons）的手部偏侧性。在马达加斯加西部的基林迪森林中，我们在四个群体中收集了自然行为和人工投喂箱的行为数据。在这两种情况下，群体水平上的红额狐猴都没有表现出手部的偏侧性。在实验任务中，更多的个体表现出了手的偏好，而且与自然行为相比，偏好更强烈。个体手偏好的方向在两种情况下并不一致。本研究的结果表明，在不同的环境下测量手部的偏侧性可能会产生不同的结果。因此，野生红额狐猴的手部偏侧性是灵活的，依赖于环境，而且在其自然栖息地中可能没有生态相关性。
