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TX: Animal Behavior Lesson

You're Acting Like an Animal!

Baby ducks display imprinting, where they follow their mother (or whomever they attach to at a critical developmental period). Why do they do this?
Continue reading to find out.

Ethology

Ethology is the study of how animals behave towards each other and in response to their environment. The stimulus is the cause of the behavior. Behaviors can be inherited and acted upon by natural selection. Often there is an interaction between the organism's genes and its environment that determine behavioral patterns.

Behavior can be classified as innate or learned.

Innate Behavior

Innate behavior is an instinctive behavior and is controlled by genes. The animal will react to a stimulus the first time it encounters the stimulus. Innate behaviors typically involve basic survival needs, such as caring for offspring or locating food.

Innate behavior examples are a baby turtle knows to head for the ocean after being hatched, a baby human has a grasp reflex

Learned Behavior

Learned behavior occurs when experience influences reaction to a stimulus. This type of behavior does not involve the organism's genes.

There are also a number of forms of social behavior, which involve species-to-species interactions. Examine each in the table below:

Learned Behaviors
Type of Social Behavior Description Example
Communication Animals use motion, sound, touch, chemical or visual cues to convey information Bees waggle in patterns that other bees understand to indicate location of nectar sources
Mating/Courtship Male animals often put on courtship displays to attract femals Blue-footed boobies have an elaborate mating display that includes sky-pointing, dancing to show off his blue feet, and a presentation of nest materials
Parental Care Mammals and birds care for their young, increasing their survival rate A hummingbird feeds her chicks. 
Cooperation When animals live together in a "society" and work together to benefit all African wild dogs cooperatively hunt. They chase and taunt their prey before forming a physical barrier around it.
Aggression/Competition Behavior that causes (or threatens) harm to other animals. This is usually caused by competition Lemurs hold their tail high when scent-marking their territory. They may also have "stink fights" with other males. 

  

Cyclical Behavior

Cyclical behaviors are behaviors that occur in a regular pattern. These can be daily (circadian rhythms) or seasonally.

  • Migration is a good example of seasonally cyclical behavior. Birds move to different habitats based on the season.

Challenge and Before You Go

Practice Time! Use the knowledge you learned from the lesson to complete the practice activities below.

 Before You Go - You Need To Know

The following key points are from the explore section of the lesson. You must know the following information before moving to the next lesson. This is just a summary of the key points.

  1. What is innate behavior?
    • Instinctive behavior that is controlled by genes
  2. What is learned behavior?
    • occurs when experience influences reaction to a stimulus. This type of behavior does not involve the organism's genes.
  3. What is ethology?
    • study of how animals behave towards each other and in response to their environment.

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