Primate Handedness Data for Phylogenetic Analysis of 41 Species

A 39.4 KB Excel file published on figshare in 2026 by Thomas A. Püschel. It contains numerical data used in a study investigating the evolution of manual lateralization across 41 anthropoid primate species, based on a sample of 2,025 individuals. The dataset supports analyses of handedness direction and strength in relation to factors like brain size and bipedalism.

Use Cases

• Phylogenetic comparative analysis based on the reported phylogenetic signal for handedness traits.
• Modeling the relationship between handedness and neuroanatomical factors based on the described link to endocranial volume.
• Investigating the evolutionary drivers of human-specific traits based on the framework for disentangling adaptations from general primate trends.
• Meta-analysis of handedness indices (MHI and MABSHI) across species as described in the source study.

Strengths

• Data is derived from a meta-analysis covering 2,025 individuals across 41 species, providing a broad comparative scope.
• Explicitly links to a published scientific framework for understanding human handedness as an evolutionary outlier.
• Released under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license, allowing for reuse and redistribution.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for specific analytical methods.
• The 39.4 KB file size indicates a very limited scope, likely containing summary or derived data rather than raw observations.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Data compiled for phylogenetic comparative methods and meta-analysis as described in the accompanying research.

Time Range

Temporal coverage of the underlying studies is not specified.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-27 17:33:50; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Spatial coverage is not specified but involves a multi-species, likely global, primate sample.