HW-Copy of Argo Animal Behavior Unit Notes

• Behavior is anything an animal does in response to a

stimulus.

• A stimulus is an environmental change that directly

influences the activity of an organism.

• Animal Behavior is the scientific study of the wild and

wonderful ways in which animals interact with each other,
with other living beings, and with the environment.

• Animals have different behaviors for different reasons,like..

– Some they learn.
– Some they are born knowing how to do.
– In the case of spiders, they know from birth how to spin a web. No

one teaches them. Behavior results from both genes and
environmental factors.

What is Behavior?

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• Animals behave in certain ways for four basic reasons:

– to find food and water
– to interact in social groups
– to avoid predators
– to reproduce

• Various behaviors of animals as a response to a stimulus

are as,
– Blinking, eating, walking, flying, vocalizing and huddling are all

examples of behaviors.

• Ethology is the scientific study of an animal's behavior in

the wild.

Behavior

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Types of behavior

• Innate Behavior
• Learned Behavior

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Innate Behavior

• An innate behavior is any behavior that occurs naturally in all

animals of a given species.

• An innate behavior is also called an instinct.

• The first time an animal performs an innate behavior, the animal

does it well. The animal does not have to practice the behavior in
order to get it right or become better at it.

• Innate behaviors are also predictable. All members of a species

perform an innate behavior in the same way.

• From the examples described above, you can probably tell that

innate behaviors usually involve important actions, like eating and
caring for the young.

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Example of innate behavior

– Reflex- simplest innate behavior with no conscience

control

•suckling

– Instinct- complex pattern of innate behaviors

•Web building or nest building

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Example of innate behavior

• Cats are natural-born hunters. They don’t need to learn how to

hunt.

• Spiders spin their complex webs without learning how to do it

from other spiders.

• Birds and wasps know how to build nests without being taught.
• Honeybees can do the waggle dance without learning it from

other bees, so it is an innate behavior.

• Baby birds open their mouths wide, the mother instinctively

feeds them. This innate behavior is called gaping.

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• Fireflies flash distinctive light patterns that are species specific.

• Migration- seasonal or periodic movement.

• Hibernation:

State in which body temp drops, oxygen consumption & breathing

rate drops.

– Conserves energy.

• Estivation:

– Reduced metabolism for living in extreme heat or to drought or

lack of food.

Definitions

Migration

Estivation

Hibernation

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Learned Behavior

• Learned behavior is behavior that occurs

only after experience or practice.

• Scientists define learning as a relatively

permanent change in behavior as the result
of experience. For the most part, learning
occurs gradually and in steps.

• Learned behavior has an advantage over

innate behavior. It is more flexible.

• Learned behavior can be changed if

conditions change.

• Although most animals can learn, animals

with greater intelligency are better at
learning and have more learned behaviors.

• Humans are the most intelligent animals.

They depend on learned behaviors more
than any other species.

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• An animal’s genetic makeup and body structure determine

what kinds of behaviors are possible for it to learn. An
animal can learn to do only what it is physically capable of
doing.

• A dolphin cannot learn to ride a bicycle, because it has no

legs to work the pedals, and no fingers to grasp the handle
bars.

• An animal learns and is able to respond and adapt to a

changing environment. If an environment changes, an
animal's behaviors may no longer achieve results. The
animal is forced to change its behavior. It learns which
responses get desired results and it changes its behavior
accordingly.

• For purposes of training, an animal trainer manipulates the

animal's environment to achieve the desired results.

Learned Behavior

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Types of Learned Behavior

• Habituation
• Observational Learning
• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Learning by Playing
• Shaping of Behavior
• Trial and Error Learning - nature setting
• Extinction of Behavior
• Insight Learning

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Habituation

• Habituation is learning to get used to something

after being exposed to it for a while.

• Habituation is one of the simplest ways of

learning.

• For example, maybe you were reading a book

when someone turned on a television in the
same room. At first, the sound of the television
may have been annoying. After a while, you
may no longer have noticed it. If so, you had
become habituated to the sound.

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Observational Learning

• Observational learning is learning by watching and copying

the behavior of someone else.

• Human children learn many behaviors this way.
• Observational

learning can

occur

with

no

outside

reinforcement.

• An animal simply learns by observing and mimicking.

Animals are able to learn individual behaviors as well as
entire behavioral repertoires through observation.

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Classical Conditioning

• One of the simplest types of learning is called classical

conditioning.

• Classical conditioning is based on astimulus (a change in the

environment) producing a response from the animal.

• Conditioning is a way of learning that involves a reward or

punishment.

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Learning by Playing

• Most young mammals, including humans, like to play.

Play is one way they learn skills as they will need as
adults.

• Think about how kittens play. They pounce on toys and

chase each other. This helps them learn how to be better
predators when they are older. Big cats also play.

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Operant Conditioning

• Like classical conditioning, operant conditioning involves a

stimulus and a response. But unlike classical conditioning,
in operant conditioning the response is a behavior that
requires thought and an action.

• The response is also followed by a consequence known as

a reinforcer.

• Animal

trainers

apply

the

principles

of

operant

conditioning. When an animal performs a behavior that the
trainer wants, the trainer administers a favorable
consequence.

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Shaping of Behavior

• Most behaviors cannot be learned all at once, but develop in

steps. This step-by-step learning process is called shaping.

• Many human behaviors are learned through shaping. For

example, most begin by riding a tricycle.

• The child graduates to a two-wheeler bicycle with training

wheels, and eventually masters a much larger bicycle, perhaps
one with multiple speeds. Each step towards the final goal of
riding a bicycle is reinforcing.

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Trial and Error Learning - nature setting

Learning where animal is rewarded for a particular

response.

1. Natural operant conditioning.

2. Modify responses to specific stimuli (releasers) -

making both more adaptive.

3. Modify releaser to specific FAP - making both

more adaptive.

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Extinction of Behavior

• If a behavior is not reinforced, it decreases.

Eventually it is extinguished altogether. This
is called extinction.

• Animal trainers use the technique of

extinction to eliminate undesired behaviors.

• To eliminate the behavior, they simply do not

reinforce it. Over time, the animal learns
that a particular behavior is not producing a
desired effect. The animal discontinues the
behavior.

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Insight Learning

• Insight learning is learning from past

experiences and reasoning. It usually
involves coming up with new ways to
solve problems.

• Insight

learning

generally

happens

quickly. An animal has a sudden flash of
insight.

• Insight learning requires relatively great

intelligence.

• Human beings use insight learning more

than any other species. They have used
their intelligence to solve problems
ranging from inventing the wheel to flying
rockets into space.

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Communication

• Exchange of information that results in a change in

behavior.

• Sounds, body movements, facial expressions, chemicals.
• Language uses symbols to represent ideas.
• Requires complex nervous system, memory and insight.
• Humans can benefit from using knowledge gained by

others.

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Animal Behavior Vocabulary

▪Behavior
- everything a living thing does
- help an animal live in its environment
▪TWO TYPES OF BEHAVIOR
1) Inborn Behavior

o behavior an animal is born with
o not learned and is not taught
o cannot be changed very easily
o Examples:

• Baby chick hatching from its egg (mother hen doesn’t tell the chick when to breakout
of shell, no way for hen to teach her chick how to break the shell)
•Functions of the body (breathing and digesting food)
• Human baby (grasping of your finger when placed in the baby’s open palm, crying,
smelling, tasting, and response to temperature)

o Reflexes:
- kind of inborn behavior, connected with some kind of action
- Examples:

•Opening and Closing of the Iris of your eye: When an animal moves from
•darkness into bright light, there is a change in the animal’s eyes. In darkness, the
colored parts, or irises, open wide to let in light. In bright light, the irises close so less
light enters each eye.

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▪Instinct

- kind of inborn behavior, includes more than one action
- Examples:

• Migration: some birds migrate or fly south for the winter,response to several actions

such as shorter days, colder temperatures, less food…

• Nest building, Web spinning
▪ Social Behavior

- kind of inborn behavior
- animals live together in an organized way
- each member of group performs jobs that are helpful to the whole group
- Examples:

•Ant colony: queen lays eggs, other ants who feed and clean the queen, other ants

take care of the eggs in a kind of nursery, some collect and store food, ome dig tunnels
and repair old ones, some are soldier ants (defend the nest from enemies)

• Bees: queen bee lays eggs, males (drones) serve only to fertilize the eggs, female

(workers) find food (worker bee des a dance at the entrance of the hive, signaling the
other bees that food has been found in blossoming flowers nearby, circling motions
tell the bees how far away the food is, straight line motions indicate the direction the
bees should travel to find the food) **small crystals of magnetite have been found in
the abdomens of bees (magnetite is a natural magnet)

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2) Learned Behavior

o behavior that is learned and can be changed
o actions which result from experience or practice
o intelligence is the ability to learn new behaviors
o mammals have the highest intelligence of animals, people are the most

intelligent, invertebrates have the lowest intelligence, although even insects

can

be trained to

perform certain actions

o Examples:

• Dog: learns to sit up and bark when trainer says a command
• Humans: play a piano, ride a bicycle, how to behave in the classroom,
etc.

�In short we can say......

• Behavior an animal is born with is called inborn behavior.
• Inborn behavior cannot be changed very easily.
• Reflexes and instincts are inborn behaviors.
• The behavior of animals living together in an organized way is social
behavior.
• Learned behavior can be changed.

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