ABSTRACT

Behavioural and brain lateralization is widespread among non-human vertebrates. Motor lateralization has been investigated in the domestic dog, revealing that “pawedness” in this species seems to be sex and task related; however, few if any studies considered this asymmetry in wolves (Canis lupus). The aim of this study was to investigate the paw preference of seven wolves housed at Parco Natura Viva – Italy, during the interaction with food-related (FD) and olfactory (OLF) environmental enrichment devices. Eleven sessions were done (22 session in total) per condition (FD and OLF), and data about enrichment manipulation were collected. Most of the wolves manipulated the enrichment devices using one paw rather than both paws. At the individual level, all subjects were lateralized in paw use, six were right pawed, one was left pawed (the alpha male) regardless of the enrichment condition. The fact that one paw rather than both was frequently involved in manipulation could indicate a practical advantage for each individual in being lateralized in paw use. Despite the small sample size, our results provide interesting insights about lateralization in wolves, deserving further investigations. More studies are needed considering factors such as temperament, social rank and task complexity on canid motor lateralization.

摘要

行为和大脑偏侧化在非人类脊椎动物中很普遍。对家养犬的运动偏侧性进行了调查，发现该犬的“爪感”似乎与性别和任务相关；但是，很少有研究认为狼的这种不对称性（犬天狼疮）。这项研究的目的是调查与食物相关（FD）和嗅觉（OLF）环境富集设备相互作用期间，位于意大利Parco Natura Viva的七只狼的爪子偏好。每个条件（FD和OLF）进行了11次训练（总共22次训练），并收集了有关浓缩操作的数据。大多数狼使用一只爪子而不是两只爪子来操纵浓缩设备。在个体水平上，所有受试者均被偏向爪子使用，六只右爪，一头左爪（阿尔法雄性），无论其富集状况如何。一个脚掌而不是两个脚掌经常参与操纵的事实可能表明，每个人在使用脚掌时都具有侧偏的实际优势。尽管样本量很小，我们的研究结果提供了有关狼偏侧化的有趣见解，值得进一步研究。需要更多的研究，考虑诸如气质，社交等级和犬的运动偏侧性等任务的复杂性。