Evidence of handedness in turtles

Abstract

Abstract Although research supporting cerebral lateralization, or handedness, in non‐human vertebrates is expanding, reptiles represent one of the least studied. While assessing wood turtle shells, we noticed more dents, scrapes, chips, and other forms of damage on the right side of turtles than on the left. Asymmetrical injury has been attributed to cerebral lateralization in other taxa, and current research supports handedness in testudines. After creating a “scute damage index” to catalog damage location, we confirmed turtles had more damage on the right side of their shells than on the left. We offer four hypotheses that explain this pattern.

Keywords

• asymmetry
• escape behavior
• handed
• injury
• shell damage
• wood turtle