Animals Elephants are left- and right-handed

Similar to right- and left-handed humans, elephants also have left- and right-handed trunks. Researchers suspect the reason for this lies in the animals' whiskers, as reported by the Humboldt University of Berlin on Tuesday.

According to the information, the pachyderms' preference for one side of the body has been known for some time. When uprooting grass, for example, they wrap themselves around the plants either on the right or left side and manage the control mainly with one half of the brain. However, the reason for this was previously unclear

While observing Asian elephants at Berlin Zoo, the international team of researchers discovered that the whiskers around the elephant's mouth differ from those of other mammals. The experts assume that this anatomical peculiarity could explain the phenomenon.

Inverted whiskers

Most mammals have short, closely spaced whiskers around the front of the mouth, which are involved in the fine control of food during feeding. In contrast, most mammals have longer whiskers on the side of the mouth, which they use to roughly direct the mouth towards the food. In elephants it is exactly the opposite: elephants have short whiskers on both sides of the mouth and long whiskers at the front. As a result, they do not eat food from the front like other animals, but from the side.

According to the researchers, this behavior could promote the development of left- or right-handedness. According to their study published in the journal "Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences", the fact that the animals transport their food into their mouth with their snout from the side and not from the front like other animals probably also contributes to the development of this preference.

SDA