Like humans most blue whales are right handed, claims study
Washington : World's largest animals - blue whales - have been found to be using their right portion more than the left side of the body for doing important things like most of the humans do, researchers said.
At certain occasions, they can flip their behaviour and shift their righties to lefties to keep a good eye on their favoured prey — tiny crustaceans known as krill.
The reason for this situation-specific choice is likely simple: to get as much food in their mouths as possible, said the report published in Current Biology.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example where animals show different lateralised behaviours depending on the context of the task that is being performed,” said co-author James Herbert-Read of Stockholm University in Sweden.
The report was based on analysis of the movement of 63 blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) off the coast of California.
The blue whales have a massive size of almost a school bus and can weigh as much as 25 elephants.
Scientists analysed more than 2,800 feeding plunges, in which whales make sharp turns or rolls when passing a patch of krill, in order to eat as many as possible.