Asymmetry of righting reflexes in sea turtles and its behavioral correlates

Physiology & Behavior
Yegor B Malashichev

Abstract

The righting responses, when the animal rights itself over one side of the body after been overturned on the back, are one of the simplest ways to test for laterality, especially in lower vertebrates. In anuran amphibians unilateral preferences in righting responses correlated to the degree of the use of alternating-limb (asynchronous) movements during locomotion. Turtles is one of the underrepresented vertebrate groups in the studies of laterality, while possess also different types of locomotion (with synchronous or asynchronous use of the contralateral limbs), which allows testing the hypothesis on functional relationship between the mode of locomotion and the strength of laterality. We studied two species of sea turtles, Green turtle (Chelonia mydas) and Olive Ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea), which differ from the majority of other representatives of the order in that they mostly utilize synchronous locomotion, when all four limbs move simultaneously in strokes (scratching). In righting response tests turtles demonstrated individual and weak population level laterality, which differed in strength. The Green turtle was less lateralized with the majority of individuals being ambipreferent. The Olive Ridley turtle had a ...Continue Reading

References

Dec 16, 1998·Animal Behaviour·A RobinsL J Rogers
Jan 1, 1997·Laterality·A BisazzaG Vallortigara
Oct 30, 2004·Laterality·Yegor B Malashichev, Natalja G Nikitina
Aug 2, 2006·Behavioural Brain Research·Gionata StancherGiorgio Vallortigara
Nov 23, 2006·Journal of Comparative Psychology·Yegor B Malashichev
Oct 18, 2007·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Gábor Domokos, Péter L Várkonyi
Aug 29, 2009·Behavioural Brain Research·Annette E SiegJames R Spotila
Jan 22, 2010·Journal of Human Evolution·Stephanie BracciniW Tecumseh Fitch
Nov 22, 2012·Laterality·Felix StröckensSebastian Ocklenburg
Mar 24, 2015·Frontiers in Psychology·Elisabetta Versace, Giorgio Vallortigara
Jun 23, 2015·Current Biology : CB·Andrey GiljovYegor Malashichev

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Citations

Jun 21, 2017·Behavioural Brain Research·Valeria Anna SovranoGionata Stancher
Aug 22, 2018·The Journal of Experimental Biology·Daniele Pellitteri-Rosa, Andrea Gazzola
Aug 11, 2019·The Journal of Experimental Biology·Chen LiRobert J Full

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