Are rats right-handed?

Yes. Just like in people, the majority of rats are right-handed, or "right-pawed."

Paw preference in rats was first recognized in 1930, when Tsai gave rats a small glass bottle of wheat germ. The opening of the glass bottle was so small that a rat could insert only one paw at a time. Tsai watched each of 105 rats grab food out of the container 250 times. A little over half of the rats (52%) used their right paws to grasp food out of the container 75-100% of the time, making them right-handed. About a third (31%) preferred to use their left paws, and a small number (17%) showed no paw-preference, making them ambidextrous (Tsai and Maurer, 1930).

More recent studies have found an even higher percentage of right-handed rats (Table 1). In general, all these studies agree that most rats are right-handed, a smaller number are left-handed, and a few are ambidextrous.

Right-handed Left-handed Ambidextrous Total #rats Reference

70.2%

19.3%

11.9%

114

Pençe 2002

72.7%

19.7%

7.6%

144

Güven et al. 2003

82.4%

10.3%

7.4%

68

Elalmis et al. 2003

Table 1: Paw preference in rats: percentages of right-, left- and mixed-handed rats.