Basic Animal Behavior and Applied Ethology

• Animal behaviors usually are strategies for survival.
• A flamingo standing in one leg, holding the other close to its body, is exhibiting heat regulation behavior.
• Ethology is the study of animal behavior.
• Behavior is the way an animal reacts to a certain stimulus with activity or inactivity.
• Stimulus is something that elicits a response.
• External stimulus is something that is outside the animal like sound, sight, smell, etc. and presence of another animal.
• Internal stimulus is something that is inside the animal like hunger, fatigue, feeling cold, and hormones.
• Anthropomorphism means attributing human emotions to animals.
• Cultural Universals happens if a class of social behavior occurs in every culture.
• If a class of social behavior occurs in every culture, it is probably genetically determined.
• Sociobiology is a systematic study of the biological bases of all social behavior of animals.
• Certain traits in animal species segregate according to the laws of heredity when various breeds within species are crossed.
• Genetic differences appear to involve response threshold- that heredity can be responsible with ease with which an animal can be motivated to express a particular behavioral response.
• Behavior of animal is based on innate forms called instincts or reflexes.
• Heredity can affect the growth and development of body parts such as sensory or motor organs.
• Genes are responsible for synthesis of specific enzymes, hormones and other chemical substances in the body which in turn affect the behavioral response of the animal.
• Animals show fixed behavioral responses when subjected to certain environmental stimuli. Such behavior can be modified by experience, a form of learning.
• Intelligence is the ability of animal to learn to adjust successfully to environmental situations.
• Intelligence is sometimes defined as the organization of behaviour.
• Organization of behavior is the ability to learn from experiences and to solve problems.
• Classical conditioning is an associative learning between normal body condition and a new stimulus.
• Pavlov was the one who experimented on dog salivation with a ringing bell.
• Operant conditioning/ Insight learning is when animal learns to behave in certain way through repeated practice.
• Trial & error learning is an animal tests conditions for desired response.
• In trial & error learning, the animal learns that a behavior gets a certain response. e.g. rat presses lever, gets food.
• Imprinting is learning at a specific critical time & forms social attachments to another. Both are learning with innate components.
• Foraging is a behavior associated with recognizing, searching, capturing, and consuming food.
• Food habits are part of animals niche.
• Foraging can be shaped by competition.
• Foraging is a compromise between benefits and costs (energetically).
• Parental care is ensuring the survival of the young e.g. carrying, nursing, cuddling, holding the young.
• Courtship is the method of attracting mate.
• Aerial dance is the courtship method of the Philippine Eagle.
• Polygamy is the practice of having more than one mating with different partners during mating season.
• Promiscuity is a behavior of animals wherein they mate with random partners.
• Polygyny is having more than one female partner at a time.
• Resource defense polygyny is a mating strategy wherein a male is a ble to support multiple female by means of fighting with other males. e.g. lion pride
• Male dominance polygyny is practiced when the females select the male who won an aggregation against other males.
• Lek polygyny happens when the male do not provide care to the yooung and the female choose her mate.
• Polyandry is when a female mates with different male partners.