Exploring the World of Animal Behavior

Early Studies of Animal Behaviour and the Beginning of Modern Animal Behaviour

• Animal behaviour has intrinsic value and can improve welfare of captive animals, aid in conservation efforts, and help resolve human-animal conflicts.
• Animal behaviour has been important historically, with early thinkers including John Ray, Charles-Georges Le Roy, Charles Darwin, Charles O. Whitman, and Oskar Heinroth.
• Animal ecology is the study of interactions between animals and their environment, while ethology is the biological study of animal behaviour.
• Ethologists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries began exploring ethology in select vertebrate species under lab conditions.
• Karl von Frisch, Julian Huxley, Konrad Lorenz, and Nikolaas Tinbergen are considered the beginning of modern animal behaviour.
• Tinbergen emphasized the importance of studying behaviour in the natural context to understand it fully.
• Tinbergen’s work still frames how animal behaviour is studied today, including his four questions: causation, function, development, and evolutionary history.
• Male sticklebacks build nests to attract females to lay eggs, which can then be fertilized by the male.
• The proximate cause of nest-building is seasonal cues, while the ultimate cause is to pass on more genes and increase fitness.
• Male sticklebacks only court certain females with a large, red belly, as this indicates the eggs are ready to be laid and the female has more eggs.
• The proximate cause of this behaviour is the large, red belly, while the ultimate cause is to pass on more genes and increase fitness.
• The learned or innate nature of these behaviours and their evolutionary history are still being studied.

Early Studies of Animal Behaviour and the Beginning of Modern Animal Behaviour

• Animal behaviour has intrinsic value and can improve welfare of captive animals, aid in conservation efforts, and help resolve human-animal conflicts.
• Animal behaviour has been important historically, with early thinkers including John Ray, Charles-Georges Le Roy, Charles Darwin, Charles O. Whitman, and Oskar Heinroth.
• Animal ecology is the study of interactions between animals and their environment, while ethology is the biological study of animal behaviour.
• Ethologists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries began exploring ethology in select vertebrate species under lab conditions.
• Karl von Frisch, Julian Huxley, Konrad Lorenz, and Nikolaas Tinbergen are considered the beginning of modern animal behaviour.
• Tinbergen emphasized the importance of studying behaviour in the natural context to understand it fully.
• Tinbergen’s work still frames how animal behaviour is studied today, including his four questions: causation, function, development, and evolutionary history.
• Male sticklebacks build nests to attract females to lay eggs, which can then be fertilized by the male.
• The proximate cause of nest-building is seasonal cues, while the ultimate cause is to pass on more genes and increase fitness.
• Male sticklebacks only court certain females with a large, red belly, as this indicates the eggs are ready to be laid and the female has more eggs.
• The proximate cause of this behaviour is the large, red belly, while the ultimate cause is to pass on more genes and increase fitness.
• The learned or innate nature of these behaviours and their evolutionary history are still being studied.