Animal Behavior

Ethology

Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior under natural conditions.

It focuses on both instinctual and learned behaviors.

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.

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 echolocation—emitting high frequency sounds to locate their prey.

Examples of Innate Behaviors:

Babies have a sucking instinct from the moment of birth.

Frogs produce sounds to attract mates

Baby turtles swim for the sea as soon as they hatch.

Learned Behaviors

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

Examples of Learned Behaviors:

Spatial Learning-A female digger wasp will always return exactly to her hidden nest, even months later.

Classical Conditioning—first described by Ivan Pavlov who taught his dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell, anticipating their food.

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.

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.

Orientation

Behaviors in which animals position themselves with respect to spatial features of their environment.

Environmental cues trigger certain responses.

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

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.

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.

Taxis

Taxis is an oriented movement toward (positive taxis) or away from (negative taxis) some stimulus.Pink Salmon swim upstream to spawn.

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.