Paws for thought

There's a bizarre little story in today's Metro, under the headline "Cats know their right from left". Here it is in full:

Cats can tell the difference between left and right, scientists say. And like humans, male moggies are more likely to use their left and females their right. Researchers studied which paw cats used for various tasks.


I'm rather confused by "male moggies are more likely to use their left". Does this mean that male cats are more likely to use their left (paw) than they are their right (paw), or that they are more likely to use their left (paw) than female cats are?

The latter, I would presume, seeing as human males are actually less likely to use their left (hand) than their right (hand) - for most tasks, at least.

But the Daily Mail version of the story indicates it is the former: 21 of 21 male cats favoured their left paw for the 'jar test'.

3 comments:

Fran Hill said...

They have to know their right from their left if they're going to get on and off buses - see this story about the commuter cat?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/8174850.stm

Gareth said...

The Daily Mail article (ugh, can't believe you made me go to that website) is better-written but just as nonsensical.

"And just as men are more likely than women to be left handed, so female felines tend to favour their right paw when tackling complex tasks while toms side with the left."

The two halves of that sentence describe two totally different things - don't they?

Blue said...

Does using one paw over the other truly require that we conclude that cats know left from right??