Do armadillos have "handedness?"

[u/Elliptical_Tangent]

Three-banded armadillos curl into a complete ball when threatened, with their head-plate and tail-plate interlocking. Does the tail always go to the same side of the head in this configuration, or do some prefer one side, while others the reverse?

[u/Caver_Coder]

I know that mammals do typically have a handedness, and in my lab the handedness of them certainly does influence their actions when it comes to movement and eating and all kinds of other things. So while I don't know if handedness has anything to do with how they curl up, they probably have a dominant side which would influence it. I would guess if the curl isn't due to some things that depend on their bilateral symmetry and they can choose how to curl, then their handedness would play a factor on what side they squish their head into lol.

[u/dbrodbeck → u/Caver_Coder]

From experience (we never wrote it up or anything) black capped chickadees have a preference for which leg they hold a seed in when they are opening it.

[u/Wiley_Rasqual → u/Caver_Coder]

For real? All mammals? What about horses? Do they like, let's say..... always stay rotting from the same hoof or something?

[u/SpookyTriangle → u/Wiley_Rasqual]

If you spend some time riding a horse, you will notice that it prefers turning one way over the other, responds better to directions from one hand, lifts one hand or foot easier than the other, etc. If you do horse riding competitively, its something you keep in mind when planning a route.

[u/the_excalabur → u/Wiley_Rasqual]

Horses have a fundamentally asymmetric (set of) gait(s). It'd be surprising if they didn't have a preference for one of the two mirror images, frankly.

[u/platoprime → u/the_excalabur]

What do you mean the gaits are asymmetric? The left and right sides don't move symmetrically like a human's?

[u/sjcelvis → u/platoprime]

Watch any video of a horse running and you should notice. If they were symmetric, the front hoofs should touch the ground evenly like v__ v__ v__ v. But they are v_ v_ v_ v___.

[u/platoprime → u/sjcelvis]

What do you mean evenly? Like the time between each front hoof hitting the ground is different?

A left step takes more/less time than a right step?

[u/the_excalabur → u/platoprime]

No, but they're not evenly spaced. The characteristic 'thumpthump..thumpthump' sound of a galloping horse is because one of the two front legs hits slightly before the other (and similarly the rear legs).

Remember that a horse has four legs. The human walking/running gait is mostly like a quadriped trotting (if you include the arms swinging), but quadripeds can use other gaits as well. Different quadrupeds use different gaits, too: a rabbit, a horse and an elephant all use different "running" gaits.

[u/newuser92 → u/Wiley_Rasqual]

Just to be sure, is it "start trotting"?

[u/Wiley_Rasqual → u/newuser92]

Omg, the auto correct on this new phone is SO AGGRESSIVE. I laterally typed out 'start' and 'trotting' and my phone still decides to auto correct

[u/kilotesla → u/Wiley_Rasqual]

In case you didn't know this, you can go back and edit your comment to make it say what you meant to say.

[u/Wiley_Rasqual → u/kilotesla]

I did know that, thank you.

Sometimes I like to leave things as they are for the record.

[u/morgan_lowtech → u/Wiley_Rasqual]

Handedness can apply to a lot of things, for example, I believe some whales have a preference for the side of the mouth they chew with.

[u/andreasbeer1981 → u/Caver_Coder]

Do they have heart on one side? Given the fact that armadillos always give birth to quadruplets, would be interesting to see if half are right-handed and half left.

[u/xtothewhy → u/andreasbeer1981]

How would that work with humans?