This document discusses the scientific study of animal behavior, known as ethology. It defines different types of behaviors such as instinct, learned behavior, reflex actions, stereotypical behavior, and genetics of behavior. Examples are given of behaviors in animals like bees, birds, and marine snails. Imprinting and its effects are also described through cases like Konrad Lorenz's geese experiments. The roles of learning, imitation, and social behavior in animals are briefly covered.

1. THE ZOOLOGICAL STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

2. Definition:
(from Greek: ἦ θος, ethos, "character"; and λόγος,
logos, "knowledge") is the scientific study of animal
behavior, and a branch of zoology.
MAIN TYPES OF BEHAVIOUR
People have to learn to read
and write, but bees do not
learn how to sting. They are
born knowing how to sting
when there is danger. This
kind of behavior is called
Instinct. Parents pass on
instincts to their young
through heredity.

3. Some basic concepts of animal behavior can be
illustrated by the egg-retrieval response of the greylag
geese described by Lorenz and Tinbergen in a famous
paper in 1938. If Lorenz and Tinbergen presented a
female greylag goose with an egg a short distance from
her nest, she would rise, extend her neck, pulling the egg
carefully into the nest.

4. Egg-rolling behavior of the greylag goose, Anser anser.

5. They also noticed that if they removed the egg
once the goose had begun her retrieval, or if the egg
being retrieved slipped away and rolled down the outer
slope of the nest, the goose would continue the retrieval
movement without the egg until she was again settled
comfortably on her nest. Then, seeing that the egg had
not been retrieved , she would repeat the egg-rolling
pattern.

6. Instinctive Behavior
•Behavior that does not
have to be learned.
Another example would
be a young bird that
has never seen another
bird build a nest, does
not have to be taught
how to build one.

7. The male crouches
as he approaches
the female , wings
outstretched. Then
a head wagging
display begins. They
often carry weeds in
their beaks as they
stretch their necks
and sway. Finally,
the male will give
the female a fish.
Grebes have an elaborate courtship dance.
-an instinctive behavior.

8. •A behavior of this type, performed in an orderly,
predictable sequence is called stereotypical behavior. Of
course, stereotyped behavior may not be performed
identically on all occasions, but it should be recognizable
even when performed inappropriately.
•In order instinct can be observable, there must act as a
stimulus, or trigger. The stimulus in the example is the
female Grebes. Scientists termed this stimulus a
releaser, a simple signal in the environment that would
trigger a certain innate behavior. Or, because the animal
usually responded to some specific aspect of the
releaser (sound, shape or color, for example) the
effective stimulus was called a sign stimulus.

9. Reflex Actions
•This type of behavior are not planned or
decided beforehand. For instance, you
accidentally touch a hot object, you pull your
hand away without thinking.
Learned Behavior
•Behavior can be changed by learning. Many
animals will run away when they hear a loud
bang. But if the bangs are repeated often
enough, the animal grows used to the noise and
ceases to run away. It has changed its behavior.

10. The hygienic behavior
in honey bees, as
demonstrated by W.C.
Rothenbuhler. The results are
explained by assuming that
there are two independently
assorting genes, one
associated with uncapping
cells containing diseased
larvae, and other associated
with removing diseased
larvae from cells.

11. GENETICS OF BEHAVIOR
u uncap cells
U does not uncap cells
r removes diseased larvae
R does not remove diseased larvae
Homozygous Homozygous
hygienic nonhygienic
♀ u/u r/r x ♂ U/U R/R
U/u R/r Nonhygeinic
hybrids
u/u r/r x U/u R/ Backcross of hygienic with
r hybrid bees
u/u r/r U/u r/r u/u R/r U/ u R / r
Hygienic Nonhygienic, Nonhygienic
Nonhygienic , does uncaps, leaves neither uncaps
not uncap but can dead larvae nor removes
remove dead larvae inside cells dead larvae

12. Learning and Diversity of Behavior
Another aspect of
behavior is learning, which we
define as modification of behavior
through experience. An excellent
model system for studying learning
processes has been the marine
opisthobrach snail, Aplysia, a
subject of intense experimentation
by E. R. Kandel and his associates.

13. If one prods the siphon, Aplysia
withdraws its siphon and gills and
folds them in the mantle cavity. This
simple protective response, called
gill withdrawal reflex, is repeated
when Aplysia extends its siphon
again. But if the siphon is touched
again, Aplysia decreases its
response and ignores the stimulus.
This is called habituation.

14. •If now Aplysia is given a noxious stimulus (for example,
an electric shock) to the head at the same time the
siphon is touched, it becomes sensitized to the stimulus
and withdraws its gills as completely as it did before
habituation occurred. Sensitization, then, can reverse any
previous habituation.
•Sensitization requires action of a different kind of neuron
called a facilitating interneuron. These interneurons make
connections between sensory neurons in the snail’s head
and motor neurons that control muscles of the gill and
mantle.

15. Neural circuitry concerned with habituation and sensitization
of the gill-withdrawal reflex in the marine snail, Aplysia.

16. Imprinting
An amazing and very
curious example of genetic and
environmental influences on animal
behavior is provided by imprinting. It
is a phenomenon exhibited by several
species when young, mainly birds,
such as ducklings and chicks. Upon
coming out of their eggs, they will
follow and become attached (socially
bonded) to the first moving object
they encounter (which usually, but
not necessarily, is the mother duck or
hen). The first scientific studies of
this phenomenon were carried out by
Austrian naturalist Konrad Lorenz
(1903 - 1989), one of the founders of
Ethology.

17. He discovered that if greylag geese were reared by him from hatching,
they would treat him like a parental bird. The goslings followed Lorenz about
and when they were adults they courted him in preference to other greylag
geese. He first called the phenomenon "stamping in" in German, which has
been translated to English as imprinting. The reason for the name is because
Lorenz thought that the sensory object met by the newborn bird is somehow
stamped immediately and irreversibly onto its nervous system.

18. Types of
Imprinting:
Filial
Imprinting
The best known form of imprinting is filial
imprinting, in which a young animal learns the
characteristics of its parent.
The filial imprinting of birds was a primary
technique used to create the movie Le Peuple Migrateur,
which contains a great deal of footage of migratory birds in
flight. The birds imprinted on handlers, who wore yellow
jackets and honked horns constantly. The birds were then
trained to fly along with a variety of aircraft, primarily
ultralights.

19. D'Arrigo noted that the
flight of a non-motorized hang-
glider is very similar to the flight
patterns of migratory birds: both
use updrafts of hot air (thermal
currents) to gain altitude which
then permits soaring flight over
distance. He used this fact to
enable the re-introduction into the
wild of threatened species of
raptors.

20. Birds which are hatched in captivity have no mentor birds
to teach them their traditional migratory routes. D'Arrigo had one
solution to this problem. The chicks hatched under the wing of his
glider, and imprinted on him. Subsequently, he taught the
fledglings to fly and to hunt. The young birds followed him not
only on the ground (as with Lorenz) but also in the air as he took
the path of various migratory routes. He flew across the Sahara and
over the Mediterranean Sea to Sicily with eagles, from Siberia to
Iran (5,500 km) with a flock of Siberian cranes, and over Mount
Everest with Nepalese eagles. In 2006, he worked with a condor in
South America.
In a similar project, orphaned Canada Geese were trained
to their normal migration route by the Canadian ultralight
enthusiast Bill Lishman, as shown in the fact-based movie drama
Fly Away Home.

21. Sexual
Imprinting
Sexual imprinting is the process by which a young
animal learns the characteristics of a desirable mate. For
example, male zebra finches appear to prefer mates with the
appearance of the female bird that rears them, rather than
mates of their own type (Immelmann, 1972). The famous
psychologist John Money called it the lovemap.
Sexual imprinting on inanimate objects is a popular
theory concerning the development of sexual fetishism. For
example, according to this theory, imprinting on shoes or
boots (as with Lorenz' geese) would be the cause of shoe
fetishism.

22. Song birds
demonstrate robust sex
differences in many
aspects of behavior.
Males of many species
of birds have
characteristic
territorial songs that
identify singers to
other birds and
announce territorial
rights to other males of
that specie.
Like many
other songbirds, a
Sound spectrogram of songs of male white-crowned
sparrow must learn the
white-crowned sparrows, Zonotrichia song of its species by
leucopharys. Top, natural songs of wild hearing the song of its
bird; bottom, abnormal song of isolated father.
bird.

23. Imitatio
n
Imitation is often a big part of the learning process. A
well-documented example of imitative learning is that of
macaques in Hachijojima island, Japan. These primates used
to live in the inland forest until the 60s, when a group of
researchers started giving them some potatoes on the beach:
soon they started venturing onto the beach, picking the
potatoes from the sand, and cleaning and eating them. About
one year later, an individual was observed bringing a potato to
the sea, putting it into the water with one hand, and cleaning it
with the other. Her behavior was soon imitated by the
individuals living in contact with her; when they gave birth,
they taught this practice to their children.

24. Scientists observed
a female macaque
washing a sweet potato
before eating it. She
was the first one to be
observed doing this
behavior. Soon after,
the rest of her troop
began washing their
sweet potatoes before
eating them.
Japanese macaque washing sweet potatoes. The tradition began
when a young female named Imo began washing sand from the potatoes
before eating them. Younger members of the troop quickly learned behavior.

25. SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
When we think of “social” animals we tend to think of
highly structured honey bee colonies, herds of antelope gazing on
the African plains, etc. But social behavior of animals of the same
species living together is by no means limited to such obvious
examples in which individuals one another.
Socially Coordinated Behavior
An individual adjusts its actions to the
presence of others to increase directly its own
reproductive success.
Cooperative Behavior
An individual performs activities that
benefit others because such behavior ultimately
benefits that individual’s genetic contributions to
future generations.