Life
Northern gannets show a consistent preference for one side or the other when diving to catch fish, with a roughly equal split between lefties and righties
By Chen Ly
A gannet diving for prey
Glyn Thomas Photography/Alamy
When gannets dive into the sea to catch fish, they roll either to the left or the right according to their individual preference, much like how most people have a dominant hand.
The preference for one side of the body over the other, or laterality, occurs in many animals. Many primates, like humans, have a dominant hand; cockatoos tend to be left-footed and bees prefer to turn right when they enter an open cavity, while blue whales seem to have different preferences for different tasks.
Ashley Bennison at the British Antarctic Survey and his colleagues attached accelerometers to 71 northern gannets (Morus bassanus) on the coasts of Ireland and Wales and tracked their movements for roughly three days. All the birds were tending to chicks aged 3 to 4 wee