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Handedness and Grooming in Pan troglodytes: Comparative Analysis Between Findings in Captive and Wild Individuals

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Abstract

Grooming is a complex set of motor actions, common in highly social primates. We tested for asymmetries in hand use during unimanual and bimanual allogrooming in 215 captive chimpanzees. In addition to hand use, we coded in the ethogram whether the manual grooming action co-occurred with the use of the mouth. Overall, grooming did not elicit strong handedness at the individual level, but there is a small yet significant population-level right-hand bias for bimanual grooming. Mouth use during grooming had no influence on hand use. A comparison of the findings with previously published data on handedness for grooming in wild chimpanzees suggests that wild apes are more right-handed than captive individuals are for allogrooming. Collectively, the results suggest that role differentiation of the hands is an important factor in the assessment of handedness for grooming, and perhaps additional manual actions of chimpanzees and other primates.

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Acknowledgments

NIH grants NS-36605, NS-42867, U42-RR-15090 and RR-00165 to the Yerkes National Primate Research Center or The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (UTMDACC) provided funding for the research. The Yerkes Center and the UTMDACC Department of Veterinary Sciences are fully accredited by the Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care. We adhered to International American Psychological Association guidelines for the ethical treatment of animals during all aspects of the study. We thank Drs. Linda Marchant and William McGrew for providing raw data from their studies in wild chimpanzees from which we could obtain frequencies in left- and right-hand use for grooming.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Psychobiology, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA

    William D. Hopkins, Jamie L. Russell & Hani Freeman

  2. Department of Psychology, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA, 30030, USA

    William D. Hopkins

  3. Department of Veterinary Sciences, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Bastrop, TX, 78602, USA

    Margaret Remkus & Steven J. Schapiro

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  1. William D. Hopkins
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  2. Jamie L. Russell
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  3. Margaret Remkus
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  4. Hani Freeman
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  5. Steven J. Schapiro
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Correspondence to William D. Hopkins.

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Hopkins, W.D., Russell, J.L., Remkus, M. et al. Handedness and Grooming in Pan troglodytes: Comparative Analysis Between Findings in Captive and Wild Individuals. Int J Primatol 28, 1315–1326 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-007-9221-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-007-9221-x

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