一项可爱的研究发现，普通的海豚和我们一样，都是“右撇子”

一项可爱的研究发现，普通的海豚和我们一样，都是“右撇子”

The vast majority of humans are right-handed, something that's hard-wired into the architecture of our brain. When it comes to animals, their 'sidedness' tends to vary a bit more - now, we have evidence that in dolphins, lefties are a minority, too.

绝大多数人都是右撇子，这是我们大脑结构中根深蒂固的东西。当涉及到动物时，他们的“侧边性”倾向于变化更多——现在，我们有证据表明，在海豚中，左撇子也是少数。

Researchers working with the Dolphin Communication Project in the US spent six years watching a population of common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) forage from the ocean floor, taking note of which way they tended to turn, and found the animals like to keep their right eye on the food.

美国海豚交流项目的研究人员花了6年时间观察一群普通的宽吻海豚(Tursiops truncatus)在海底觅食，记录它们的转向，发现这些动物喜欢用右眼盯着食物。

Having a preference for one side of the body or the other is now understood to be common throughout the animal kingdom. Gorillas and chimpanzees favour their right hands, like us. But in most orangutans, as well as animals such as kangaroos and cockatoos, the paw or claw on the left is usually the dominant.

偏爱身体的一侧或另一侧现在被认为是整个动物界的普遍现象。大猩猩和黑猩猩和我们一样喜欢用右手。但在大多数猩猩，以及袋鼠和凤头鹦鹉等动物中，左爪通常占主导地位。

Giraffes usually put out their left leg before their right when sinking down for a drink, and reindeer herds tend to move in a counter-clockwise direction. In fact, from lions to bats to chickens or even bees, it's looking like a lot of different animals have some sort of lateral bias.

长颈鹿在下潜喝水时，通常会先伸出左腿，再伸出右腿，驯鹿群则倾向于逆时针移动。事实上，从狮子到蝙蝠到鸡，甚至蜜蜂，看起来很多不同的动物都有某种横向偏见。

Such a bias makes sense when we consider that nervous systems usually consist of a left and right hemisphere. Not only does each half of the brain hold jurisdiction over the opposite half of the body, the left and right hemispheres also dominate in respective tasks in what is referred to as lateralisation.

当我们考虑到神经系统通常由左脑和右脑组成时，这种偏见是有道理的。大脑的左半球和右半球不仅控制着身体的另一半，还控制着各自的任务，这就是所谓的“侧化”。

To work out which way the dolphins of the common bottlenose variety lean while finding food, the researchers recorded the sounds and movements of just under 30 individuals off Bimini in The Bahamas.

为了弄清楚宽吻海豚在寻找食物时是如何倾斜身体的，研究人员记录了巴哈马群岛比米尼附近近30只海豚的声音和动作。

Specifically, they noted which way the animals turned while practising what's known as crater feeding – a nose-down method of foraging that involves scanning the sand for prey and buzzing the floor with their echolocation.

具体来说，他们记录了这些动物在进行所谓的“火山口喂食”时的转向方式。“火山口喂食”是一种用鼻子朝下的觅食方式，包括扫描沙子寻找猎物，并用回声定位器在地板上发出嗡嗡声。

In a tally of 709 pinwheel spins performed by several dozen dolphins, 705 steered left, using their right eye to look for a meal.

在几十只海豚进行的709次旋转中，有705只海豚向左转，用它们的右眼寻找食物。

This suggests to the researchers that the left hemisphere of their brains does most of the processing prey-related sensory information, either of a visual nature or also involving echolocation.

这向研究人员表明，它们大脑的左半球处理大部分与捕食相关的感官信息，无论是视觉性质的，还是涉及回声定位的。

Interestingly, the four 'left eyed' manoeuvres were all carried out by just one individual. While the statistics aren't exactly overwhelming, it could point to an atypical 'south paw' dolphin whose brain is lateralised differently to the others.

有趣的是，四个“左眼”动作都是由一个人完成的。虽然统计数据并不能完全压倒一切，但它可能指向一个非典型的“南爪”海豚，它的大脑侧化与其他海豚不同。

This research was published in Royal Society Open Science.

这项研究发表在《英国皇家学会开放科学》杂志上。