Animal Behavior Notes!

Two Classifications of Behavior –

• ADAPTIVE ADVANTAGE
• innate behaviors
• automatic, fixed, “built-in”, no “learning curve”
• despite different environments, all individuals exhibit the behavior
• ex. early survival, reproduction, kinesis, taxis
• learned behaviors
• modified by experience
• variable, changeable
• flexible with a complex & changing environment

Innate behaviors

• Fixed action patterns (FAP)
• sequence of behaviors essentially unchangeable & usually conducted to completion once started
• sign stimulus
• the releaser that triggers a FAP

Innate: Fixed Action Patterns (aka: sight stimulus)

• Digger wasp

• egg rolling in geese

• What about other objects?

• Sphex wasps drop paralyzed insect near the opening of the nest. Before bringing the prey into the next the wasp goes in to inspect. If the prey gets moved the wasp will get it again & do the same thing over.

Innate: Directed & Undirected Movements

• Kinesis: change in speed of an animal’s movement in response to a stimulus.
• -speeds up in unfavorable
• environment
• -slows down in favorable
• environment

• Taxis: movement towards or away from the stimulus

Innate: Migration

• Long-distance, seasonal movement of animals.
• -usually a response to seasonal availability of food or
• environmental changes

• Konrad Lorentz

• He examined animals in their natural environments and concluded that instinct plays a key role in animal behavior

• From his observations Lorenz established the concept of imprinting, the process by which an animal follows an object, normally its biological mother. He found that for a short time after hatching, chicks are genetically inclined to identify their mother’s sound and appearance and thereby form a permanent bond with her.