Animal Behaviour &

Ethology
-Avneesh Bishnoi
(1317027)
What is Animal Behaviour?
Animal Behaviour is basically the scientific
study of wild and wonderful ways in which
animals interact with each other, with other
living beings, and with the environment.
Behaviour is anything an animal does
involving action and/or a response to a
stimulus. Blinking, eating, walking, flying, etc
are all examples of behaviours.
 Purpose and need of
behaviour
O Survival value- For it’s survival in nature, an
animal shows a particular kind of behaviour.
This behaviour might have developed during
the periods of evolution for its better
survival. For e.g.- Longer necks of Giraffe.
O Reproductive Success- Animal shows a
particular type of behaviour also in order to
increase it’s reproductive success in nature.
For e.g.- Crocodiles lay eggs outside the
water body and hatches them till birth.
 What is Ethology and how is it
connected with Animal Behaviour?

Ethology is the scientific and objective study

of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on
behaviour under natural conditions, and
viewing behaviour as an evolutionary adaptive
trait.
In simpler words, it is the science of animal
behaviour.
Evolution of Ethology:
O Jean-Baptiste Lamarck- 1st to describe that
biological evolution occurred and proceeded
in accordance to natural laws.
O Charles Darwin- also known as Father of
Animal Behaviour.
He gave theories of evolution with his basic
tenet of “Survival of fittest/ Natural Selection”
For e.g. Darwinian Finches
Darwin also wrote two important books on
evolutionary theory and animal behaviour:
1. Descent of man & Selection in relation to
sex{1871}.
2. Expression of emotions in man & and
other animals{1872}.
Later on, in 1904 Ethology evolved with the
contributions of Ivan Pavlov. He was awarded
Nobel prize in physiology in 1904 for his work
on physiology of digestion which involved
animal behaviour with his famous experiment
of bell and dog. He noticed that dogs tended
to salivate before food was actually delivered
to their mouths, and set out to investigate this
“psychic secretion”.
Lorenz, Tinbergen & Frisch-
Nobel prize(1973)
The Nobel prize for Physiology for 1973 was
awarded to 3 ethologists which was a
landmark event in the history of field of
ethology and potentially for the behavioural
sciences more broadly.
These 3 ethologists were: Karl von Frisch,
Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen.
• He was an Austrian Zoologist, ethologist and
ornithologist.
• Lorenz(1935) investigated the mechanisms
of imprinting, where some species of animals
form an attachment to the first large moving
object that they meet. This process suggests
that the attachment is innate and
programmed genetically.
• He studied this intrinsic behaviour in
animals, especially greylag geese and
jackdaws. Later on, he became widely known
for his descriptions of imprinting as an
instinctive emotional bond.
Konrad Lorenz’s Imprinting Phenomenon
• He was a Dutch biologist and ornithologist who shared
the 1973 Nobel prize in physiology with Frisch and
Lorenz for their discoveries concerning organization
and elicitation of individual and social behaviour
patterns in animals.
• He published a book in 1951 The Study of Instinct, an
influential book on animal behaviour.
• The major question of the book is the role of internal
and external stimuli in controlling the expression of
behaviour. It summarises Tinbergen's ideas on
innate behavioural reactions in animals and the
adaptiveness and evolutionary aspects of these
behaviours. By behaviour, he means the total
movements made by the intact animal; innate
behaviour is that which is not changed by the
learning process.
 Fig. Tinbergen’s hierarchial model from The
Study of Instinct.
He suggested that motivational impulses build up in nervous
centres in the brain which are held in check by blocks. The
blocks are removed by an innate releasing mechanism that
allows the energy to flow to next centre( each centre containing
a block need to be removed) in a cascade until the behaviour is
expressed.
• He was an Austrian ethologist.
• His work centered on investigations of the
sensory perceptions of the honey bee and he
was one of the first to translate the meaning of
the waggle dance.
• Frisch studied aspects of animal behaviour,
including animal navigation, in the Carniolan
honey bee (Apis mellifera carnica), a subspecies
of the European honey bee.
• Frisch's investigation of a bee's powers of
orientation were significant. He discovered that
bees can recognize the desired compass
direction in three different ways: by the sun, by
the polarization pattern of the blue sky, and by
the earth's magnetic field, whereby the sun is
used as the main compass.
• Sense of smell, optical perception, power of
orientation and polarization pattern,
Variation in daytime perception and internal
clock, horizontal orientation and vertical
orientation were some of the key objectives
of the research done by Karl Von Frisch.
Some other important scientists
in the field are:
O Charles O. Whitman- best known for his
posthumously published three volume work The
Orthogenic Evolution in Pigeons ( considered to be
1st extensive study in comparative ethology).
O Oskar Heinroth- one of the founders of Ethology. He
studied behaviour of duck and goose.
O Wallace Craig- his studies of behaviour of pigeons
provided special insights into nature of instincts and
their role in social life of birds.
O Julian Huxley- he worked in fields of embryology,
systematics, and studies of behaviour and evolution.