UNIT: 4

ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR
 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMAL
BEHAVIOR
• The word ‘ethology’ is derived from two Greek word
‘ethos’ meaning culture and ‘logos’, meaning study.
• Behavior can be defined as observable activities an
animal performs in response to the various stimuli in
order to survive and reproduce.
• A behavioral act is a response to a stimulus which is the
basic and universal concept of behavior. A stimulus is
always a change in the internal or external environment
of organisms.
• A stimulus may be in the form of signs/symbols or
releases. Signs can be visual, auditory, chemical or other
types of sensory models.
 Cont….
• A releaser stimulus releases certain programmed
stereotyped activities or fixed action pattern
• (FAP) of behavior. A stimulus always elicits a response
which is an attempt to adapt to the
• change. Thus behavior is generally stimulus- response
oriented. The behavior of an organism is
• essentially an expression of the capabilities of its
nervous system. While the environment
• determines the nature of the stimulus, the response
involves the body, especially the nervous
• system of the organism which is genetically
determined.
 TYPES OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR

• Behaviour can be categorized into two main types,

• 1. Innate or inherent behaviour or
• 2. Learned or acquired behaviour
• Innate or inherent behaviour or stereotyped behaviour
is inborn or inherent behaviour sequence of activities
which is predictable, species specific, genetically
controlled and independent of past experience.
• Since this is type of behaviour follows a fixed patern
(FAP) which is predictable and found in all members of
a species it also called stereotyped behaviour.
 Characteristics of innate or
stereotyped behaviour
• 1. Pattern of behaviour is inherited. It is passed
on from parents to offsprings,
• 2. It is unlearned behaviour
• 3. It occurs in all the members of a species hence
it is species specific and predictable.
• 4. It is not dependent on past experience as it is
an inborn response to a stimulus
• 5. It takes place in individuals even when kept in
isolation away from their fellow members
• 6. Innate behaviour has high adaptability and
survival value.
 Types of innate behaviour

• There are different types of innate or

stereotyped behaviour
• 1. Taxis
• 2. Irritability
• 3.Kinesis
• 4. Instincts
• 5. Reflexes
• 6. Motivation
 1. Taxis
• Taxisis the simplest type of innate or stereotyped
behaviour. It is an orientation of an animal (directed
either towards or away) in response to the source of
stimulus. If the orientation is towards the stimulus it is
called as positive taxis and if it is away from the
stimulus it is known as negative taxis
• Taxes are usually named after the stimuli. Hence there
are phototaxis, chemotaxis, thermotaxis, geotaxix etc.
• A plant or animal that move towards light shows
positive phototaxis.
• Certain burrowing animals like rodents or planaria that
more away from the source of light exhibits negative
phototaxis.
 Example for positive phototaxis

• The protozoan, Euglena response to a variety of

stimuli and is very sensitive to light. It swims
• towards light, hence it shows positive phototaxis.
This behaviour is of distinct advantage to the
• animal because light is necessary for assimilation
of CO2 by the chlorophyll. If a dish a
• containing Euglena is covered on one half and the
other half is exposed to light it is seen that
• euglena will avoid the dark region and will
aggregate in the bright region of the dish.
 Example for negative phototaxis
• Maggots that are about to pupate moves away from light
source towards a dark location hence they show negative
phototaxis. When maggots are kept on a surface
illuminated by a beam of light, it will move away from the
source of light more or less in a straight line. However it
will often move its head from side to side measure the
intensity of light with its single light receptor located on
the head.
• If the intensities on both the sides are equal, then the
animal’s body is oriented along the beam of light. By
comparing successive light intensities the maggots are
able to orient itself so as to crawl away from the light
source.
• The periodic lateral movement of the head ensures the
animal that it is on the right track , that is away from the
light source.
 Irritability

• def.: Irritability is an excessive response to stimuli.

• Conditions Irritability can occur in people experiencing
any of a variety of conditions, including:
• Anxiety
• Alcoholism
• Fever
• Examples of irritability
• Protozoans lack nervosa system but protoplasm is
capable of receiving the stimuli.
• They can distinguished between edible and non edible
• particles.
 2. Kinesis

• Kinesis is a type of locomotory behaviour in relation to

the source of stimulus.
• The animal responds to the variation in the intensity of
the stimulus and not the source of direction of the
stimulus.
• To respond to such stimulus the animal only requires
sense organs sensitive to variation in stimulus intensity.
• There are two types of kinesis
• a. Orthokinesis
• b. Klinokinesis
 cont…
• Ortho kinesis is a response that involves changes in the
speed of movement of the whole body
• in response to stimuli like humidity, preserve and diffused
light.
• Eg:Wood louse, Porcellerio scaber, a small crustacean that
live in damp areas, and they tend to lose water from their
body fairly rapidly when exposed to low humidity. When
wood lice are kept at the junction in a choice chamber
where one side has high humidity and the other half has
low humidity.
• It is noticed that after a short while the wood lice begin to
move and the speed of movement and the rate of turning is
greatest in the driest part of the chamber and least in the
humid part. This increased and apparently random
movement is an attempt by the animal to remain in the
most favorable environment.
Wood lice
 Cont….
• Klinokinesis: In Klinokinesis the speed of
locomotion remains constant but the rate at
which the animal changes direction depends on
the intensity of the stimulus.
• Eg: A planaria changes its direction ever so often
as it crawls. If the light intensity above the
animal is increased it changes direction more
frequently but moves at the same speed .
• The increase in rate of turning falls after
sometime but increases again with a further
increase in the intensity of light.
 3. Reflexes
• A simple movement of a part of the animal in response to
a stimulus is called reflex. It is a quick,
• innate and immediate response of a part of the body to an
external or internal stimulus, which has
• great adaptive and survival value to the organism. Reflexes
are inherited and unlearned
• behaviour found in all members of the species. The knee-
jerk, constrict of pupil of eye in the
• bright light, blinking of eye, peristalsis, coughing etc. in
man, flight in birds, web spinning in
• spiders are all examples of reflexes. A reflex action requires
a reflex arc which consists of a
• sensory organ (receptor), a sensory nerve (afferent
nerve), the spinal cord or brain, an
• intermediate motor or efferent nerve and a motor organ
or effector.
 Cont….
• A reflex action thus involves the sense organs and nervous
system. The stimulus is received by the receptor or sense
organ which sets up a sensory impulse.
• This impulse is transmitted to the central nervous system
(brain and spinal cord) through the intermediate nerve.
• This motor impulse is transmitted to the effector or motor
organ, muscles and glands which either contract or secrete
in response to the stimulus. Many pattern of animal
behaviour are complex combinations of simple reflex.
• Advantages of reflex
• 1. Enables the animal to respond immediately to harmful
stimuli hence it has great adaptive and survival value
• 2. Since many of the reflex actions are controlled by the
spinal cord, it relieves the brain from too much work.
 4. Instinct

• Instinct is the most complex type of stereotyped

behviour which is unlearned, predictable,
genetically controlled and species specific and it
is in response of a sign or releaser stimuli.
• Of all the stereotyped behaviour instincts are the
most fascinating to study.
• Eg: Building of nest by birds, singing to attract
males, territoriality, migration, parental care etc.
 Example of instinctive behaviour
• 1. The reproductive behaviour in three spined stickleback
fish
• a. A sexually mature stickleback fish male will have a red
coloured belly to attract the female. A mature stickleback
fish migrates to warm shallow waters. Migration is an
instinctive behaviour triggered by the increase in
gonadotropic hormones which is inturn controlled by
environmental factors like temperature and photoperiod.
• b. On reaching shallow waters the fish builds a nest which is
open at both ends with the help of plants and weeds. The
nest building behaviour is triggered by the presence of
green vegetation in the water. Thus he acquires a small
territory.
• c. He exhibits territoriality or defends the area around the
nest from other male fishes that are also in search of
suitable nesting grounds.
 Cont..
• d. The fish becomes aggressive and exhibits threat
posture by facing downwards. The sign stimulus
for territorial and aggressive behaviour is the red
belly of other male fish.
• e. The presence of a female triggers the courtship
behaviour in the male because of its swollen belly
that is full of eggs. The male performs a ziz-zag
dance which
attracts the female. During his dance the male
always exposes his red belly to the female.
• f. The male leads the female into the nest to
releases its ova that are immediately fertilized by
the male. After this the female is driven out and
the male may lure other females to its nest.
 Cont….
• g. The presence of eggs in the nest triggers parental care in
the male fishes and begins to fan the eggs with its fins and
young once are taken care by the males.
• Hence various stereotyped instinctive behaviour in stickle
back fishes are migration, nest building, territoriality,
aggression, courtship and parental care. Tinbergen
conducted simple experiments to demonstrate the
instinctive behaviour pattern in Stickle back fish.
• Males presented with models of stuffed female or even a
bloated male elicited the courtship dancing behaviour.
• When a female is presented with a red belly model of the
male fish it faithfully followed it, suggesting the visual sign
triggered these behaviours.
 Motivation
• Motivation is the psychological feature that arouses
an organism to action toward a desired goal and
elicits,controls, and sustains certain goal directed
behaviors.
• For instance: An individual has not eaten, he or she
feels hungry, and as a response he or she eats and
diminishes feelings of hunger.
There are many approaches to motivation:
physiological, behavioural, cognitive, and social
• Motivation may be rooted in a basic need to minimize
physical pain and maximize pleasure, or it may include
specific needs such as eating and resting, or for a
desired object.
• Conceptually, motivation is related to, but distinct
from, emotion.
 Learned (acquired) behaviour
• Thorpe defined learning as a long lasting adaptive change in
behaviour resulting from past experience; hence it is
acquired during the life time of an individual.
• Characteristics of learned behaviour
• 1. It is acquired during the life of an organism due to
constant experience
• 2. It is experience dependant and can be modified through
experience
• 3. Learning is flexible
• 4. Learning behaviour differs from individual to individual
to individual among the same species hence not species
specific
• 5. Learned behaviour is certainly not inherited though the
ability to learn is almost certainly inherited as it is
dependent on the development of the nervous system of
the organism which is inherited
 Cont….
• 6. All organisms from protozoa to humans
have the ability to learn atleast to some
extend
• 7. However learning in humans surpasses all
other animals .Almost everything we do has
been learned .No other species surpasses the
humans in their amount and range of
information that is acquired through learning.
 Types of learning
• 1:Habituation
• 2:Imprinting
• 3:Classical conditioning
• 4:trial and error learning
• 5:latent learning
• 6:insight
• 7:resoning
• 8:congintion
 Habituation

• Habituation is the simplest and most common

type of learning seen in all organisms as simple
as protozoan to as complex as man.
• It can be defined as the gradual decrease in
response to repeated exposure to the same
stimulus if found to be harmless. Hence it is a
king of negative learning wherein the animal
learns to ignore a harmless stimulus and fails to
respond.
• Thus habituation is the ability to ignore a
prolonged stimulus. It is the gradual learning by
an organism not to respond to stimuli which are
repeatedly found to be of not adaptive value to it.
 Advantages
• 1. It saves energy by avoiding unnecessary
response: It is a vital process because without it,
the animals bombarded by the numerous visual
auditory, olfactory gustatory and tactile stimuli
from their environment would be in a constant
and needless state of alarm or expectation.
• 2. Habituation behaviour filters out the
multitude of back ground stimuli that have no
important consequences thus leaves the animals
attention free to concentrate on the stimuli
which are essential for its survival and which
may be potentially harmful.
 Examples

• a. Lack of continued response to strong odour is a

common example of sensory habitation.
• Sensory system may stop after sending signals to
the brain in response to a continuous repeated
stimulus.
• b. If the web of a spider is disturbed at one end,
but finding nothing it returns. If this stimulus is
repeated severe; times it will gradually stop
responding as the stimulus was of no important
consequence to the spider and hence it will
ignore the stimulus. However the spider will
respond if some other end of the web is
disturbed.
 IMPRINTING
• Imprinting is a relatively simple but specialized type
of learning that takes place during critical period or
sensitive period early in the life of an organism.
• It is especially rapid and relatively irreversible
learning process that occurs early in life. The central
concept of imprinting is the innate release
mechanism whereby organisms genetically
predisposed to be especially response to certain
stimuli during the critical period.
• It was first described by O. Heenroth and later
demonstrated by Konard Z Lorenz on Goslings and
Ducklings which is also called following behaviour.
Lorenz investigated the phenomenon
of imprinting
 Cont….
• Newly hatched bird imprints on the first moving
object it sees (imprinting stimulus) and then will
direct their social behavior toward that object.
• Lorenz split a clutch of graylag goose eggs; left
half with mother to incubate and raise; they
showed normal behavior, followed her, grew up
to interact and mate with conspecifics
• Half the clutch placed incubator, offered himself
as a model for imprinting; goslings followed him
as if he were their parent; failed to recognize
mother or other conspecifics; as adults, tended to
develop social relationships with humans, not
geese; some initiated courtship with humans .
 Characteristics of imprinting
• 1. Imprinting will occur only during the critical
period of an animal’s life.
• The time of the critical period varies in ducks it
takes place from 13-16 hours of hatching and no
imprinting occurs after 36 hours.
• In checks the critical period is between 5-25
hours after which no imprinting is possible.
Human babies have a sensitive period that occurs
between 18 months to 3 years.
• During this critical period the absence of the
mother or a foster care taker results in behavioral
abnormalities later in life, they are unable to
show normal bonding.
 Cont…..
• 2. Imprinting is a form of learning behaviour where
the young ones learn to recognize an object or
person considering it to be their parent hence
develop an almost irreversible attachment to it.
• Thus imprinting is an innate behaviour but the
recognition of the object is learned. It is innate as it
cannot occur anytime during the life of an animal
but it is seen only during a particular period called
critical or sensitive period.
• 3. Imprinting occurs towards any moving object or
person first seen by the animal. If was first seen in
birds but later also observed in fishes and mammals
• 4. Imprinting is relatively permanent
 Advantages of Imprinting

• 1. Though imprinting is seen for a short period

in the years there is a long lasting effect.
• 2. Imprinting influences social behaviour and
mate selection
• 3. It allows the young ones to recognize their
own kind and especially theiur parents which
is necessary for their survival
 TRIAL AND ERROR LEARNING
• Trial and error learning or operant learning is a
type of associative learning where particular
• actions can be reinforced by providing a
reward after successfully completing the
task.
• The pioneers in this type of instrumental
learning in the laboratories are E. L. Thorndike
and B. K.Skinner.
 Cont….

• Edward Lee Thondike was one of the most

famous and popular behaviorists of the 20th
century who investigated this type of learning in
cats using a series of puzzle boxes or problem
boxes.
• The doors of these puzzle boxes could be open
by pushing a lever or button pulling a string.
• The cat confined in such a puzzle box tries to
escape by moving about randomly or restlessly
inside the cage and in this process accidently it
pushed the lever or pulled the string and the
door opened which resulted in obtaining its food.
 Cont….
• This process was repeated for the next few times
till the cat learned to associate the pushing of the
lever or pulling of the string resulted in obtaining
the reward ie, food
• Gradually after several attempts or trail and
errors the cat learned to eliminate all activities
that did not get any reward and at the same time
it reinforced or repeated the activities that were
rewarding.
• Finally the cat learned to push the lever or button
or pull the string to open the door as soon as it
was confined in the box without making any
errors.
 conditional learning
• By 'conditional learning', me mean where
someone is conditioned to behave in a
particular way by rewards and punishments a
process in which an animal learns torespond
to a stimulus which doesn’t normally elicit
that response
 Cont…..
• Ivan Pavlov provided the most famous example of
classical conditioning, though E. B. Twitmyer
published his findings a year earlier (a case of
simultaneous discovery).
During his research on the physiology of digestion
in dogs, Pavlov noticed that, rather than simply
salivating in the presence of food, the dogs began
to salivate in the presence of the lab technician
who normally fed them.
Pavlov called this anticipatory salivation psychic
secretion
 Cont….
• From this observation he predicted that, if a
particular stimulus in the dog's surroundings was
present when the dog was given food, then this
would become associated with food and cause
salivation on its own. In his initial experiment,
• Pavlov used a bell to call the dogs to their food
and, after a few repetitions, the dogs started to
salivate in response to the bell.
• Pavlov called the bell the conditioned (or
conditional) stimulus (CS) because its effect
depended on its association with food.
He called the food the unconditioned stimulus
(US) because its effect did not depend on previous
experience
 Cont…
• Likewise, the response to the CS was the
conditioned response (CR) and that to the
US was the unconditioned response (UR).
• The timing between the presentation of the CS
and US is integral to facilitating the conditioned
response.
Pavlov found that the shorter the interval
between the bell's ring and the appearance of
the food, the more quickly the dog learned the
conditioned response and the stronger it was
 Latent learning
• Latent learning is a form of learning that is not
immediately expressed in an overt response; it
occurs without any obvious reinforcement of the
behavior or associations that are learned
• Interest in latent learning arose largely because the
phenomenon seemed to conflict with the widely-
held view that reinforcement was necessary for
learning to occur.
• learning that is not the result of determined effort
and is not evident at the time it occurs, but remains
latent until a need for it arises.
 Cont…
• In a classical experiment by Edward C. Tolman,
three groups of rats were placed in mazes and
their behavior was observed each day for
more than two weeks.
• The rats in Group 1 always found food at the
end of the maze; the rats in
• Group 2 never found food; and the rats in
Group 3 found no food for 10 days, but then
received food on the eleventh.
 Cont…
• The Group 1 rats quickly learned to rush to the
end of the maze; Group 2 rats wandered in
the maze but did not preferentially go to the
end. Group 3 acted the same as the Group 2
rats until food was introduced on Day 11; then
they quickly learned to run to the end of the
maze and did as well as the Group 1 rats by
the next day.
 Cont…
• Other experiments showed that latent learning
can happen in shorter amounts of time such as in
three or seven days.
• Among other early results, it was also found that
animals that were allowed to wander in the maze
but were detained for one minute in the empty
goal box then learned the maze much more
rapidly than groups that were not given such goal
orientation.
 Cont…
• In mice, knowledge of the immediate environment
of its burrow may help it escape from a predator.
• At the time of acquiring this knowledge, it ha no
apparent value, hence not all behavioral activities
are apparently directed to satisfying a need or
obtaining a reward
• Metzgar has shown latent learning process moght
work in natyre for the deer mouse.
• Only two of twenty deer mouse with prior
experience in the hall were caught by the owl,
while eleven of twenty mice with no prior
experience in the habit were captured
 Insight
• insight, in learning theory, immediate and clear
learning or understanding that takes place
without overt trial-and-error testing.
• Insight occurs in human learning when people
recognize relationships (or make novel
associations between objects or actions) that can
help them solve new problems.
 OR
• A type of learning that uses reason, especially
to form conclusions, inferences, or judgments,
to solve a problem.
• Insight learning is based on advanced
perceptual abilities such as thought and
reasoning.
• Kohlar’s work on chimpanzees suggested
insight learning:
 Cont…..
• Much of the scientific knowledge concerning
insight derives from work on animal behaviour
that was conducted by 20th-century
• German Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Köhler.
In one experiment Köhler placed a banana
outside the cage of a hungry chimpanzee,
Sultan, and gave the animal two sticks, each
too short for pulling in the food but joinable to
make a single stick of sufficient length
 Cont….
• Sultan tried unsuccessfully to use each stick, and
he even used one stick to push the other along to
touch the banana.
• Later, apparently after having given up, Sultan
accidentally joined the sticks, observed the result,
and immediately ran with the longer tool to
retrieve the banana.
• When the experiment was repeated, Sultan
joined the two sticks and solved the problem
immediately..
 Reasoning
• the drawing of inferences or conclusions through
the use of reason OR
• Evidence or arguments used in thinking or
argumentation.
• Humans possess the power of reasoning.
• First Known Use of REASONING
• 14th century
• the reasons, arguments, proofs, etc., resulting
from this process.
 Animal Cognition

• Cognition is the ability of an animal’s nervous

system to perceive, store, process, and use
information gathered by sensory receptors.
• Problem solving can be learned by observing
the behavior of other animals.