ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

What is behavior?
Behavior is the way an organism interacts with other organisms and its environment. Behaviors are affected by stimuli. A stimulus is anything in the environment that causes a reaction. A stimulus can be internal (examplehunger or thirst) or external (examplea rival male entering another males territory)

Types of Behavior: Innate and Learned

Innate Behavior
Behavior that an animal is born with Inherited/not learned Example

Image: Dr John Brackenbury Science Photo Library

Innate Behavior
Reflexa simple, automatic response that doesnt involve a message from the brain
Examplessneezing, blinking when something is thrown toward you

Instinctscomplex pattern of innate behaviors

Examplespider spinning a web

Check your understanding: Reflex or instinct?

Nature: My Life as a Turkey

This video segment highlights the innate knowledge wild turkeys have about the world around them. In this segment, wildlife artist and naturalist Joe Hutto reflects upon the depth of knowledge wild turkeys have about the world around them. He states they are born with a blueprint of animals and the natural environment and are able to easily distinguish harmful animals from friendly ones. Hutto conducted an experiment, where he became a parent to 16 wild turkeys, by having them imprint onto him. Hutto mentions the one thing he needed to teach them was where to find water and the specific lay of the land.

Learned Behavior
Develops during an animals lifetime Animals with more complex brains and longer life spans exhibit more behaviors that are the result of experience and practice. Learned behavior includes: imprinting, trial and error, conditioning, and insight.

Imprinting
When an animal forms a social attachment to another organism and develops a sense of identity in the first few hours and days of its life

Trial and Error

Behavior that is changed by experience ExampleWhen baby chicks first try to feed themselves, they peck at many stones before they get any food. As a result of trial and error, they learn to recognize and peck only at food.

Conditioning
Behavior is modified so that a response to one stimulus becomes associated with a different stimulus Example

Insight
A form of reasoning that allows animals to use past experiences to solve new problems Babies learn mostly by trial and error. Adults rely more on insight. Example Elephant using insight to solve problem

Behavioral Interactions

Social Behavior
Interaction among organisms of the same species Includes courtship and mating, caring for young, claiming territories, protecting each other, and getting food Some animals live together in societies. A society is a group of animals of the same species who live and work together in an organized way.

Territorial Behavior
Many animals set up territories for feeding, mating, and raising young. A territory is an area that an animal defends from other members of the same species. Why do animals claim and defend territories? This video segment looks at koalas. An outsider, a traveling male, enters an established colony and a territory battle ensues.

Territorial Behavior
Aggression A forceful behavior used to dominate or control another animal Submission Postures that make an animal appear smaller and are used to communicate surrender

Aggression and Submission

Communication
Communication can be auditory (sound), visual, tactile (touch) or chemical (tastes and smells). Animals use communication to attract mates, warn off predators, mark territory and to identify themselves. NatureWorks video: Communication

The Meaning of Dog Barks

Listen to a variety of dog barksfrom woofs to whinesand try to interpret their meaning.

Cyclic Behaviors
An innate behavior that occurs in a repeating pattern
Hibernationa cyclic response to cold temperatures and limited food supplies Migrationthe instinctive seasonal movement of animals from one habitat to another
NatureWorks video: Migration

How Smart Are Animals?

Would you care to match wits with a dog, an octopus, a dolphin, or a parrot? You may think twice after watching the segments in this NOVA scienceNOW episode. While we may not be ready to send pets to Harvard, the remarkable footage and findings presented here demonstrate that many animal species are much smarter than we assume and in ways we had never imagined.

What Are Animals Thinking?

We humans have long wondered how animals see the worldand us. Does your dog really feel shame when it gives you that famous "guilty look?" What is behind the "swarm intelligence" of slime mold or a honeybee hive? How can pigeons possibly find their way home across hundreds of miles of unfamiliar terrain? In this episode of NOVA scienceNOW, David Pogue meetsand competes with a menagerie of smart critters that challenge preconceived notions about what makes "us" different from "them," expanding our understanding of how animals really think.