Animal Behavior

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Animal Behavior
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Ethology

• Ethology is the scientific study of animal
  behavior under natural conditions.
• It focuses on both instinctual and learned
  behaviors.

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Behavior is essential

• Behavior is an essential part of acquiring
  nutrients for digestion and of finding a mate for
  reproduction.
• Behavior also contributes to homeostasis, as when
  honeybees huddle together to produce and
  conserve heat.

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Innate Behaviors (Instinctual)

• Behaviors determined by the hard-wiring
  (genetics) of the nervous system.
• It is developmentally fixed throughout life.
• A given stimulus will trigger a given response.
• These behaviors are usually inborn and inflexible
  and usually adapt the organism to its
  environment.

Bats use echolocationemitting high frequency
sounds to locate their prey.
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Examples of Innate Behaviors
Frogs produce sounds to attract mates
Baby turtles swim for the sea as soon as they
hatch.
Babies have a sucking instinct from the moment of
birth.
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Learned Behaviors

• Behavior that is more or less permanently altered
  as a result of the experience of the individual
  organism.

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Examples of Learned Behaviors
Spatial Learning-A female digger wasp will always
return exactly to her hidden nest, even months
later.
Classical Conditioningfirst described by Ivan
Pavlov who taught his dogs to salivate at the
sound of a bell, anticipating their food.
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Imprinting

• A type of behavior that includes both learned and
  innate components. It is the formation at a
  specific stage in life of a long-lasting
  behavioral response to a particular individual or
  object.

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Examples of Imprinting

• Konrad Lorenz showed that the principal
  imprinting stimulus in graylag geese is a nearby
  object that is moving away from the young.
• When incubator-hatched goslings spent their first
  few hours with Lorenz rather than a goose, they
  imprinted on him . They showed no recognition of
  their biological mother or other adults of their
  species.

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Orientation

• Behaviors in which animals position themselves
  with respect to spatial features of their
  environment.
• Environmental cues trigger certain responses.

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Examples of Orientation
Emperor Penguins huddle together in the winter
away from cold winds.
Crocodiles bask in the sun to warm up.
Llamas face the same direction as a flock
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Kinesis

• A change in activity rate in response to a
  stimulus.
• Kinesis movements are random turning or movement
  of an animal in relation to a stimulus.
• An animal may change its speed or may tend to
  settle down and stop moving depending on the
  stimulus.

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Examples of Kinesis
Animals will appear to move randomly in all
directions in a search for food and then settle
down in one location for a period of time.
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Taxis

• Taxis is an oriented movement toward (positive
  taxis) or away from (negative taxis) some
  stimulus.

Pink Salmon swim upstream to spawn.
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Example of Taxis
Beetles in the Namib Desert in Africa climb to
the tops of sand dunes to collect droplets of
water from the fog. They tilt their bodies
upwards so the water will run down into their
mouths.
Pheromones are hormones produced by plants and
animals that are attractive to others of the same
species.