The Scientific Study of Animal Behavior

Amanda Labrado
October 22, 2009
The Study of Animal Behavior
Read Chapter 35 and answer these questions:

1. What is a proximate cause of animal behavior?

A proximate cause of animal behavior is why an animal responds in a certain

way. Such as, what mechanism allows an animal to respond?

2. What is an ultimate cause of animal behavior?

An ultimate cause is why a particular behavior occurs. Such as, how did the
behavior come into existence?

3. Describe an experiment that discovered the genetic factors involved in

animal behavior.

Researchers inserted a gene into meadow voles that controls the “abundance
of hormone receptors in part of the brain” to find out if they could be
monogamous like the prairie voles. They did become monogamous.

4. Describe an experiment that examined the environmental factors involved in

animal behavior.

Norway rats spend s great deal of time licking their young. Low interaction
mothers had offspring who were more responsive to stress and are more
fearful in new situations. On the other hand, rats who had high interaction
mothers were more relaxed in stressful situations. Researchers put high
interaction mothers with low interaction mothers to see if it was truly these
factors that determined whether a rat would be frightful or not. It was.

5. Define these types of learning: habituation, imprinting, special learning,

cognitive mapping, associative learning, social learning, problem-solving.

a.) Habituation- Loss of response to stimulus after repeated exercise.

b.) Imprinting- Irreversible learning and limited to sensitive period in time.

c.) Spatial learning—Landmark used to learn spatial structure of environment.

d.) Cognitive mapping- An internal representation of the spatial relationships

among objects in the environment.

e.) Associative learning-behavioral change based on linking a stimulus/ behavior

with reward / punishment

f.) Social learning-learning by observing / mimicking others.

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g.) Problem solving-inventive behavior arising in response to new situations.

h.) Look up a type of learning that interests you. Search for an animal not in the
book that exhibits this type of learning. Name the animal, its taxonomic rank,
binomial name, a brief life history, and what learning behavior it exhibits.
Discuss the proximate and ultimate cause involved in this type of behavior.

Dog Canidae -Canis familiaris- domesticated 14,000 years ago, commonly live
among humans in households and were normally meat eaters but are now fed “dog
food” which is just flavored. Dogs exhibit associative learning for instance if a dog
becomes accustomed to hearing a bell when he eats he will always respond to the
bell awaiting a meal.

i.) Look up the definitions of these terms that describe animal mating behavior:
polygyny, polyandry, polygamy, promiscuity, monogamy.

a.) Polyandry- simultaneous dedication to multiple partners by a female

during a single breeding season.

b.) Polygyny- more than one wife at a time/ having two or more mates either
simultaneously/ successively/ + insects= two or more functioning queens
in a colony.

c.) Polygamy- type of relationship in which an individual of one sex mates

with several of the other.

d.) Promiscuity- no strong pair bonds or lasting relationships between males

and females

e.) Monogamy-a bond between one male and one female with shared
parental care.

j.) Discuss altruistic behavior in animals.

Altruism is defined as behavior that reduces an individual’s fitness while

increasing the fitness of others in the population. Altruism in the human world
would be like taking the blame for something to protect your friends while
hurting your reputation. Altruistic behavior is when a squirrel makes a loud
call noise to alert its fellows and attract the predator to him so the others
have time to get away. I think altruism is great.