Most Parrots Are Lefties

Like humans, they prefer one side over the other: Study
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 3, 2011 12:16 PM CST
Most Parrots Are Lefties
A pair of blue fronted Amazon parrots fly from a perch to a trainer after the "Flite Zone" program at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh, Thursday, April 29, 2010.   (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

Parrots are left-handed … or at least, as left-handed as you can be when you don’t actually have hands. Australian researchers discovered that, like humans, nearly all parrots prefer to use one side of their body over the other: either their left eye and left foot, or right eye and right foot. About 47% of the birds they studied were lefties, 33% righties, and the rest ambidextrous, the Telegraph reports. Some young birds seemed to experiment with both sides before choosing one.

"Basically, you get this very close relationship with the eye that they use to view the object and then the hand that they use to grasp it, and it's very consistent across all the species except a couple," says the lead researcher.
(More parrots stories.)

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