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What is behaviour?
Behaviour is how an animal
acts in response to internal and
external stimuli. Behaviour
plays an essential role in an
animal’s ability to survive.

It allows animals to:

 avoid predators

 find food

 reproduce

 communicate with other animals.

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Instinctive behaviour
Instinctive behaviour in
animals is essential to their
survival. This type of behaviour
is pre-programmed. It includes
behaviour such as jumping at a
loud noise (reflex action) and
fleeing from danger.

This behaviour is not taught but is present from birth,

therefore it is thought to be inherited.

Instinctive behaviour does not require conscious thought,

allowing it to be performed quickly. However, such behaviour
can be inflexible and therefore might not always be
appropriate in a changing environment.

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Learned behaviour
Learned behaviour is behaviour which is modified through
experience. It allows animals to adapt to changes in the
environment, such as the arrival of a new predator.

Learned behaviour is not

inherited, but can be
developed through:

 experience
 observation
 reasoning.

Types of learned behaviour include conditioning and

habituation.

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Instinctive or learned?

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Learned behaviour – habituation
Animals can learn to ignore a harmless stimulus – this is
called habituation. It means they do not waste energy
responding to unimportant stimuli.

Prairie dogs give alarm calls

when predators approach.
These alarm calls warn other
prairie dogs to escape into
burrows.

Humans do not represent a threat to prairie dogs. The young

learn not to give the alarm call when a human approaches, so
they do not waste the time and energy of the group.

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Learned behaviour – conditioning
Learning associations between stimuli is called conditioning.
Animals may have an instinctive
response to a particular stimulus,
for example, a dog growls at the
appearance of a cat.
If a cat always appears through the cat
flap, in time, the dog will learn that once
the cat flap moves, a cat will appear.
The movement of the cat flap (the new
stimulus) is associated with the
presence of a cat, and the dog starts
to growl every time the cat flap moves.
The dog has learned the association between the two stimuli.

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Investigating conditioning

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Types of conditioning

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Which type of behaviour?

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Methods of communication

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Communication in mammals
Mammals also communicate through body posture and
facial expression.
Facial expressions are species-specific.
The same expression can mean
different things to different animals.
For example, teeth-baring can be a
sign of friendship in humans (as a
smile), but can be a sign of
aggression in other primates.
Animals use a range of body postures to communicate.
Cats arch their backs when confronted with a potential threat.
Wolves will lower their ears and head in the presence of a
more dominant wolf.

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What type of communication?

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Feeding behaviours
Animals display different feeding behaviours depending on
the type of food they are adapted to eat.

Wildebeest will spend much of

their day grazing. This is because
herbivores have to eat a large
volume of food to obtain sufficient
nutrients.

Lions will hunt and feed for just a

short period of time each day. This is
because carnivores obtain a high
concentration of protein and other
nutrients from their meat-rich diet.

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Group size

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Carnivores

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Using tools
Some animals have evolved the ability to use tools. This
allows them access to more types of food.

 Woodpecker finches use cactus

spines to skewer insects through
cracks in wood.

 Sea otters use stones to

smash open oyster shells.

 Chimpanzees use stones

to crack open nuts.

 Bottlenose dolphins cover their noses with sponges to

protect them when they fish on the sea floor.

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Courtship
In order to reproduce, individuals need to attract a mate.
Many animals have evolved elaborate courtship displays
to attract the opposite sex. Usually it is the male that shows
this behaviour.
The Sandhill crane calls and
dances as part of its courtship
ritual. This requires lots of energy
from the male and shows that he
is capable of collecting large
amounts of resources.

A display may also demonstrate a male’s general genetic

fitness. Females are attracted to males with greater fitness
as this may be inherited by their offspring.

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Mating strategies

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Parental care
Mammals and birds have evolved specialized behaviour
called parental care.
Such behaviour includes:
 incubation of eggs
 feeding
 protection from predators.

Parental care increases the offspring’s likelihood of survival.

This increases the probability of passing on the parental genes.
Parental care is therefore a successful evolutionary strategy.
However, this behaviour requires a lot of time and energy
from the parents. The cost of this parental care means they
can only raise a few young.

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Test your knowledge

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Human relations with animals

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Testing on animals

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What is anthropomorphism?
The attribution of human emotion and behaviour to animals is
called anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism can be
misleading.

Animal facial expressions

are often interpreted as
versions of human
expressions, such as
smiling or frowning.

Humans may think that animals show emotion, for example,

when they are shouted at. In fact, animals may just be
reacting to the loud noise.

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How alike are we?
One of the defining characteristics of humans is self-
awareness. Self-awareness is the knowledge of being an
individual with independent thoughts and actions.

Biologists do not know if

animals are self-aware. It is
difficult to measure because
humans cannot communicate
easily with other animals.

One test which is regarded as showing self-awareness is

whether an individual can recognize themselves in a mirror.
Chimpanzees, orangutans and dolphins are thought to be
able to recognize themselves in mirrors.

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What do you think?

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Glossary

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Anagrams

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Multiple-choice quiz

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