🐝 Animal Behaviour
Instinct, learning, communication and social life of animals.
Animal Behaviour has 53 topics on LearnViz, graded from Beginner to Advanced. Pick a topic below to read its explanation, examples, FAQs and related links.
What is Animal Behaviour?
Animal behaviour studies what animals do and why. It asks how behaviour is controlled by genes and the nervous system, how it is learned, and how it has been shaped by natural selection. Topics include communication, foraging, mating systems and migration.
Beginner topics (15)
Animal Behaviour
Everything an animal does in response to stimuli, studied by ethology.
🐝 Animal BehaviourInnate Behaviour
Inherited, instinctive behaviour performed without prior experience, like a spider spinning a web.
🐝 Animal BehaviourLearned Behaviour
Behaviour changed by experience, such as a bird learning a song.
🐝 Animal BehaviourInstinct
An inborn pattern of behaviour triggered by a particular stimulus.
🐝 Animal BehaviourHabituation
Learning to ignore a repeated harmless stimulus.
🐝 Animal BehaviourImprinting
Rapid learning during a critical period, such as ducklings following the first moving object they see.
🐝 Animal BehaviourClassical Conditioning
Pavlov showed that dogs learn to associate a neutral signal with food and respond to the signal alone.
🐝 Animal BehaviourOperant Conditioning
Behaviour changes through rewards and punishments, as in Skinner's experiments.
🐝 Animal BehaviourCommunication
Animals pass information using sound, scent, visual displays and touch.
🐝 Animal BehaviourPheromones
Chemical signals released by an animal that affect others of its species.
🐝 Animal BehaviourTerritoriality
Defending an area for feeding, mating or nesting.
🐝 Animal BehaviourCourtship
Ritualised displays that help animals select and attract suitable mates.
🐝 Animal BehaviourSocial Groups
Living together can provide protection, hunting benefits and shared care of young.
🐝 Animal BehaviourMigration Behaviour
Regular seasonal journeys, such as monarch butterflies and Arctic terns.
🐝 Animal BehaviourBiological Rhythms
Cycles of behaviour, daily (circadian) and seasonal, tied to light and temperature.
🐝 Animal BehaviourIntermediate topics (16)
Fixed Action Patterns
Stereotyped behaviours triggered by a sign stimulus and carried through to completion, like the stickleback's attack on a red belly.
🐝 Animal BehaviourTinbergen's Four Questions
Ask about causation, development, function and evolution to fully explain any behaviour.
🐝 Animal BehaviourNature vs Nurture
Behaviour results from interaction of genes and environment, not one alone.
🐝 Animal BehaviourForaging Behaviour
Animals choose food in ways that maximise energy gained for time and effort spent.
🐝 Animal BehaviourOptimal Foraging Theory
Predicts animals select prey and patches that give the greatest net energy return.
🐝 Animal BehaviourPredator Avoidance
Alarm calls, vigilance, flocking and camouflage reduce the risk of being eaten.
🐝 Animal BehaviourDominance Hierarchies
Social ranking in a group that reduces conflict over resources, like the pecking order in hens.
🐝 Animal BehaviourAltruism
Behaviour that benefits others at a cost to the actor, explained by kin selection and reciprocity.
🐝 Animal BehaviourReciprocal Altruism
Helping others who are likely to return the favour later, as vampire bats share blood meals.
🐝 Animal BehaviourMating Systems
Monogamy, polygyny and polyandry reflect resource distribution and parental investment.
🐝 Animal BehaviourParental Investment
The time and energy a parent spends on offspring, typically higher in the sex that produces fewer larger gametes.
🐝 Animal BehaviourHoneybee Waggle Dance
Bees communicate the direction and distance of food using a figure-eight dance angled to the sun.
🐝 Animal BehaviourBird Song Learning
Young songbirds memorise a tutor song and refine their own through practice, guided by brain song circuits.
🐝 Animal BehaviourAnimal Navigation
Animals use landmarks, the sun, stars, magnetic fields and smell to find their way.
🐝 Animal BehaviourPlay Behaviour
Seemingly purposeless activity in young animals that develops skills and social bonds.
🐝 Animal BehaviourAnimal Cognition Experiments
Tests of memory, tool use and self-recognition reveal complex thinking in many species.
🐝 Animal BehaviourAdvanced topics (22)
Game Theory in Behaviour
Hawk-dove models predict stable mixes of aggressive and peaceful strategies in populations.
🐝 Animal BehaviourHamilton's Rule
Altruism evolves when relatedness times benefit exceeds the cost, rb greater than c.
🐝 Animal BehaviourSexual Conflict
Differences in the evolutionary interests of males and females drive arms races in mating traits.
🐝 Animal BehaviourSperm Competition
Competition between sperm from different males to fertilise eggs, shaping anatomy and behaviour.
🐝 Animal BehaviourCooperative Breeding
Helpers other than parents assist in raising young, as in meerkats and some birds.
🐝 Animal BehaviourSocial Learning and Culture
Animals such as chimpanzees and whales pass traditions through observation and imitation.
🐝 Animal BehaviourNeuroethology
Studies the neural basis of natural behaviours, for example owl sound localisation and bat echolocation.
🐝 Animal BehaviourBehavioural Genetics
Identifies genes influencing behaviour, such as the foraging gene in fruit flies.
🐝 Animal BehaviourHormones and Behaviour
Testosterone, oxytocin and vasopressin shape aggression, bonding and parenting.
🐝 Animal BehaviourCollective Behaviour
Swarms, schools and flocks emerge from simple local rules without a leader.
🐝 Animal BehaviourAnt Colony Optimisation
Pheromone trails let ants find short paths, inspiring algorithms for routing problems.
🐝 Animal BehaviourMirror Self-Recognition
Great apes, dolphins, elephants and magpies pass mirror tests, hinting at self-awareness.
🐝 Animal BehaviourBehavioural Ecology of Signalling
Honest signals are kept reliable by cost, as in the handicap principle.
🐝 Animal BehaviourBrood Parasitism
Cuckoos lay eggs in other birds' nests, driving an evolutionary arms race of mimicry and detection.
🐝 Animal BehaviourAnimal Personality
Consistent individual differences in boldness or sociability influence survival and reproduction.
🐝 Animal BehaviourPredator-Prey Arms Races
Reciprocal adaptations such as bat echolocation and moth hearing escalate over evolutionary time.
🐝 Animal BehaviourBehavioural Plasticity and Climate
Animals adjust timing and movement to changing climates, but not always fast enough.
🐝 Animal BehaviourChronobiology
Studies endogenous circadian clocks and how they synchronise behaviour to the environment.
🐝 Animal BehaviourHuman Evolutionary Psychology
Applies evolutionary reasoning to human behaviour, cognition and social preferences.
🐝 Animal BehaviourAnimal Welfare Science
Studies the physical and emotional states of animals to improve how they are kept and treated.
🐝 Animal BehaviourMovement Ecology
Integrates tracking technology and theory to explain why and how individuals move through landscapes.
🐝 Animal BehaviourConditioned Taste Aversion
Animals avoid foods linked to illness after a single exposure, a specialised form of learning.
🐝 Animal BehaviourUse cases
- Conservation: Knowing how animals find food, mates and shelter helps design reserves and wildlife corridors.
- Animal welfare: Behavioural signs such as stress or abnormal repetition are used to judge the welfare of captive and farmed animals.
- Pest control: Understanding mating and feeding behaviour lets managers use traps, lures or disruption methods more effectively.
- Neuroscience and psychology: Simple behaviours in animals, such as reflexes and learning, are used to study the brain.
Frequently asked questions
How many topics are covered in Animal Behaviour?
Animal Behaviour has 53 topics on LearnViz: 15 Beginner, 16 Intermediate and 22 Advanced. Each one has its own page with an explanation, use cases, FAQs and related topics.
Where should a beginner start in Animal Behaviour?
Start with the Beginner topics, such as Animal Behaviour, Innate Behaviour, Learned Behaviour. Once those terms feel familiar, move on to the Intermediate topics.
What are the most advanced topics in Animal Behaviour?
The Advanced level includes Game Theory in Behaviour, Hamilton's Rule, Sexual Conflict, Sperm Competition, Cooperative Breeding. Read the Beginner and Intermediate topics first, because the Advanced ones build on them.
Can I test my knowledge of Animal Behaviour?
Yes. The Animal Behaviour quiz asks questions generated from the topic explanations, and the timed tests on LearnViz cover the same material.
Is animal behaviour mainly instinct or learned?
Most behaviour is a mix of both. Some actions, such as a newborn's sucking reflex, are innate. Others, such as birdsong in many species, are refined by learning from adults.
What is the difference between a proximate and an ultimate cause?
A proximate cause explains how a behaviour happens, such as the hormone or stimulus that triggers it. An ultimate cause explains why it evolved, usually in terms of survival or reproduction.
Why do animals sometimes behave altruistically?
Helping relatives can increase the spread of shared genes (kin selection). Reciprocal help between unrelated individuals can also evolve when the favour is likely to be returned.