An%20Introduction%20to%20Animal%20Behavior

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An Introduction to Animal Behavior

• By
• Essam M. Abdelfattah
• BSc., MSc., PhD

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EthologyAnimal Behavior

• Scientific study of animal behavior in their
  natural or usual environment
• Study of habits and customs of animals
• Founders of this study famous behaviorists
  Lorenz and Tinbergen
• Earned Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for their work
• Big Theory Animals behavior evolved through
  the animals interaction with its environment

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What is animal behavior?

• Behavior is the way in which animal interact
  with its surrounding environment, both
• Animate Environment (humans, other animals,
  plants)
• Inanimate Environment (objects, places, sun,
  air)
• All acts performed by animals (feeding, drinking,
  fighting, etc..
• Response of animal to a certain stimulus

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Aim of ethology (7 T)

1. To find and establish the optimum environmental
   condition
2. To know what is going within the animal mind and
   understand the body language
3. To diagnose disease (normal Vs. abnormal)
4. To examine and treat animals (how to handle
   animals)
5. Select method of restraint acc. To behavior of
   animal
6. To achieve animal reproduction and raise
   livestock (sexual and maternal behavior)
7. To achieve animal welfare which will lead to high
   performance and production
8. To know the actual causes which induce the
   behavioral disorders or vices

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Behavior and animal production

• An understanding of the behavior of livestock
  will facilitate handling, reduce stress, and
  improve both handler safety and animal welfare.
  Large animals can seriously injure handlers
  and/or themselves if they become excited or
  agitated.
• Stockman, farm manager, animal transporter, and
  designer of animal houses have to be aware of
  farm animal behavioral informations

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• Feeding behavior
• what is the type and amount of food that animal
  need, feed conversion efficiency, control of
  feeding
• Reproductive behavior
• Successful mating
• Survival of young animals
• Social behavior
• Knowledge of floor space and stocking density are
  important for animal production

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Behavior and veterinary medicine

• Knowledge of behavior is important for handling
  and restraint of animals for surgeon
• Diagnosis of diseases change in behavior is
  first signs of disease (loss of appetite, altered
  activity, loss of grooming)
• E.g. horse suffering from colic
• Diagnosis and treatment of different behavioral
  problems in pets (behavioral therapy)
•  Examples include pets with unacceptable
  elimination behaviors or are aggressive to people
  or other animals.

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How is behavior determined?
Nature (biology) vs. Nurture (environment)?

• Is behavior inborn (instinctive) and
  predetermined?
• Or is it a function of learning and the
  environment?

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How is behavior determined?
Both!
Behavior is a blend of innate behavior
(inherited) and acquired (learned) behavior
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Classification of animal behavior

• Inherited behavior (innate, unlearned,
  instinctive, native)
• Important for survival and conservation of
  species
• Acquired behavior (learned)
• Adopt useful method for survival within their
  environment

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Inherited behavior

• Includes two types
• Behavior of maintenance
• Constant behavioral patterns needed to maintain
  animal life (self-maintenance) such as ingestion,
  elimination, rest and sleep
• Reproductive behavior
• Behavioral patterns occurring during reproduction
  needed to maintain animal species
• Sexual behavior
• Maternal behavior

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Maintenance behaviors

• Ingestive behavior
• Related to anatomy and physiology of each species
  (prehension)
• Related to nature of food (herbivorous,
  carnivores, omnivorous)
• Including feeding (ingestion of solid feed),
  drinking (ingestion of water and milk)
• Understanding of ingestive behavior (how to
  search for, to locate and to ingest food) is
  critical to animal production.
• Horse cropping by incisors
• Cattle eating by tongue
• Sheep and goat incisors and lips
• Dog gulping the food

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Eliminative behavior

• Evacuation of faces (defecation) and urine
  (urination)
• Posture or stance of elimination differ between
  species,
• Horse following defecation turn and smell the
  spot
• Cattle raising of tail and arching of back
• Dog raising one leg and urinate to substrate
• Cats toilet behavior
• Birds defecate by leaning forward, raising the
  tail and spreading the feather
• differ between sexes,
• Male dog cock one leg and urinate while females
  usually squat
• Differ with social status increase with fear

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Grooming behavior (body care)

• Including
• Care of the body (natural grooming)
• Thermoregulation (regulate body temperature)
• Self-Grooming (Auto-grooming) animal take care
  of its own body through licking and rubbing
  (parts that can reach)
• Body licking, nose licking, rolling, scratching
• Function
• Keep body clean (One good indicator of general
  health)
• Free from ecto-parasites
• Free from foreign objects (faces, urine, mud)
• Reduce risk of diseases

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• Mutual grooming (social or allo-grooming)
• One animal take care of another animal
  (herdmates)
• Function (biological and social)
• Remove ecto-parasites from parts that animal can
  not reach
• Take care of wounds
• Reward for the groomer (obtain salt and vitamin
  D)
• Promote and cement relationship between
  individuals
• Reduce aggression and tension
• Maintain social structure

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Reproductive behaviors

• The activities or actions during reproduction
  includes
• Sexual behavior
• Male sexual behavior
• Pre-copulatory (courtship/libido)
• Copulatory (erection, mounting, ejaculation,
  dismounting)
• Post-copulatory (quiet period, flehmen response)
• Female sexual behavior
• Estrous cycle (length, type, signs)
• Ovulation (type, time)
• Best time of mating
• Maternal behavior (care-giving behavior,
  Epimeletic, attentive)

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Maternal behavior (Epimeletic)

• Feeding and keeping of the offspring from danger
  by dam (female) which is important for survival
  of animal
• Pre-parturient
• signs approaching parturition
• Nest-building (rabbits)
• Isolation and shelter-seeking (sheep)
• Parturient (stages of birth)
• Post parturient
• Licking behavior (maternal licking and
  imprinting)
• Sucking behavior
• Brooding in chickens

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• Low maternal behavior (rabbit)
• High maternal behavior (dog)
• Maternal behavior is innate behavior however
  experience play a role
• Factors influence the expression of maternal
  behavior
• Internal factors
• Hereditary (gene expression)
• Hormones (Prolactine)
• Experience
• External factors
• Smell, sound, and appearance of newborn

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Two classes of maternal behavior

• Polytocous species (dog, cat, rabbits, mice, rat)
• Altracious young
• Young entirely depend on mother
• Monotocus species (horse, cattle, camel, sheep)
• Precocious young
• Low maternal behavior

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Types of embryos

• Precocial when newly born resemble adult and can
  feed, move and defend themselves e.g. Lamb of
  sheep.
• Altricial when are helpless without parent cant
  survive e.g. mice, rats, dogs.
• Precocial Altricial

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• Paternal behavior in which both parents (male
  and female) take care offspring equally
• E.g. many species of birds (pigeon) and fish
  (take care of egg and fries)
• Male parental behavior in which male take care
  offspring
• Not common in animals (primates)
• Common in birds (dark eye junco)

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Care soliciting behavior (Et-epimeletic)

• Care-soliciting behavior is a variety of
  behavioral activities manifested to solicit
  attention, care, or help from other individuals.
  For example, some dogs exhibit this behavior
  during thunderstorms unnecessarily to get 'love'
  from owners.
• Usually manifested by young animals so called
  infantile behavior when was under stress or
  danger (distress call)
• Chicks.. Chirp
• Calvesbawl
• Lambs..bleat
• Puppieswhine or yelp

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Agonistic behavior

• Aggression a physical act or threat of action by
  an individual which cause pain or injury or
  reduce freedom of another individual
• Agonistic behavior any behavior associated with
  threat, attack or defense (escape, passivity,
  aggression)
• Function of aggression in animal life
• To obtain food
• To facilitate access to another sex
• To establish social dominance
• To win territory
• To protect their young

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Types of aggression

• Social aggression
• who will be dominant over whom
• To form peck order (social hierarchy)
• Type of social grouping
• Territorial aggression
• Keep animals out of home area
• Pain or fear- induced aggression
• Treatment of abscess
• Irritable aggression
• Hungary, fatigued, sick, old animals
• Maternal aggression
• To protect young and equal to male attack

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• Sexual aggression
• Competition between animals of same species to
  obtain a sexual partner
• In some species such as the cat, mating
  accompanied with aggression
• Predatory aggression
• Food-getting behavior
• Some animals attack to obtain food
• Infanticide
• Killing of very young animals by adult
• Female rodents kill pups
• Rabbits eating their young

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Allelomimetic behavior (mimesis, contagious,
gregarious or mimetic)

• In which two or more animals do the same thing at
  the same with some degree of mutual stimulation
  and coordination.
• Beneficial
• maintain social group and provide safety
• Encourage feeding behavior
• Harmful
• Spread of vices between members of group

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Shelter-seeking behavior

• Looking for optimum environmental condition to
  avoid predators
• Some animals find shelter from bodies of other
  animals
• Other animals find shelter within farm, barn or
  from objects like trees
• Thermoregulation

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Exploratory behavior (investigatory behavior)

• Explore their environment to obtain information
  for survival by using sense organs
• Differ between species and individuals
• Allow time for investigation in new area

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• Signaling between one animal another
• Greeting e.g. sniff, hug, kiss
• Aggression e.g. charge, bite, hit, fight
• Non-aggression e.g. patting, head butting,
  stroking
• Verbal signaling (vocalization)
• E.g. bark, howl, hoot, chirp
• Non-verbal signaling
• E.g. body, head, ear, / or tail position
• Showing teeth, smiling, sign language

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Motivation (motivated behaviors)

• Behavior of maintenance and reproductive behavior
  related to what is called motivation
• Motivation the internal state of animal that
  causes the immediate behavioral response
• Each organism born have a variety of biological
  needs
• Need something that is required physiologically
  e. g. need for food, water, sex
• When the need is not satisfied, the drive is
  aroused

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• The drive is psychological consequence of need
• Once the animal in high drive state (motivated),
  the animal start to move
• So we can observe 3 stages in animals behavior
• The searching phase (Appetitive behavior)
• Consumatory behavior (achievement of the goal)
• Phase of quiescence (satiation)

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• Need
• Hunger
• Thirst
• Sexual drive

• Goal
• Food
• Water
• Other sex

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Acquired behaviors

• Domestic animals have ability to learn
• They adopt new useful methods for survival within
  their environment
• Animals acquire many behavioral patterns through
  learning
• Learning
• Development of behavior through experience
• Determine final shape of innate behaviors
• 7 types of learning

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Types of learning

• Habituation
• Is waning of a new response to a repeated
  stimulus
• Simplest form of learning
• Occur rapidly if stimuli are given close together
• Importance of habituation
• Filtering large amounts of information received
  from surrounding environment
• Waning of the responses of farm animals to
  handling procedures and housing conditions
• Animal learns to ignore frequent, harmless
  stimulus
• E.g scarecrow, habituation to observer

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• Associative learning
• Animal learns to associate unrelated response
  with a stimulus
• Two types of associative learning
• Classical conditioning (CR type I, Pavlovian
  conditioning)
• In which animal associate a response with a
  certain stimulus as a result of reinforcement
• E.g. Pavlovs experiments
• Bell ringing, food, salivation
• Bell ringing salivation (even if no
  food is given)

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Pavlovs experiment
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How dog training works
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Reinforcement

• In conditioning animals modify their behavior in
  such way to obtain maximum reward and avoid
  punishment
• Positive reinforcement. Giving animal favorite
  food
• Negative reinforcement. Punishment

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• Classical conditioning
• E.g. 1. suckling by calf, squeezing of teat
  release of oxytocine
• 2. Jangling of milking equipments, sight of calf
  release of oxytocine

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Operant conditioning (CR type II, trail and error)

• In which animal learn to behave in a certain way
  through repeated practice
• Trail error learning- animal tests conditions
  for desired response
• In which animal is motivated by thirst, hunger,
  fear but no UCS
• E.g. Skinner box (B.F. Skinner)
• Animal learns that a behavior gets a certain
  response
• E.g. rat presses lever to get food

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Operant conditioning

• Because the animal uses behavior as instrument in
  getting a reward, it is usually called
  instrumental conditioning
• Operant used because the animal response in some
  way operates on the environment

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Reinforcement

• Positive reinforcement
• Used for strengthens a response
• Giving animals favored food e.g. grains
• Negative reinforcement
• Used for removing unwanted response
• Punishment such as hitting

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Imprinting

• Definition
• A process that occurs when an animal learns to
  make a particular response to only type of animal
  or object
• Both innate and learned
• Occurs during a definite critical time period
  (within first 36 hr)
• Irreversible (once learned, cant be changed)
• Conard Lorenz with duckling

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Imprinting

• Animals learn to follow their mothers just after
  parturition or hatching (attachment behavior)
• Lambs and colts are most ones can be imprinted to
  other animal, human, objects

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Insight learning (Reasoning)

• Highest form of learning
• The immediate understanding, and response to new
  situation without trail and error
• Was identified by Wolfgang kohler while studying
  the behavior of chimpanzee
• Insight learning is the abrupt realization of a
  problem's solution
• insight learning is often at the root of
  creative, out of the box, thinking (Inventions
  and innovations)

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• Insight learning is considered a type of learning
  because it results in a long-lasting change.
  Following the occurrence of insight, the
  realization of how to solve the problem can be
  repeated in future similar situations

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Imitation (observational learning)

• Animal learns by observing another animal
• Albert Bandura, a Canadian-born psychologist,
  gets credit for developing and popularizing observ
  ational learning theory
• observational learning can be understood via four
  distinct concepts
• attention, retention, motor reproduction,
  and reinforcement

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Taste aversion (bait shyness)

• Taste aversion is a learned response to eating
  spoiled or toxic food. When taste aversion takes
  place, you avoid eating the foods that made you
  ill. Taste aversion can be so powerful that
  sometimes you also avoid the foods that
  you associate with an illness, even if the food
  did not cause the illness
• Psychologists John Garcia and Robert
  Koelling studied taste aversion in 1966 while
  researching the effects of radiation on
  laboratory rats

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Exploratory learning (latent)

• Animals learn all characteristics of surrounding
  environment and remember its landmarks
• Acquire new information about environment

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Learning

• Learning occurs in a variety of ways
• sometimes it is the result of direct observation
  of another
• other times, it is the result of experience
  through personal interactions with the
  environment.
• response to an environmental stimulus
• as a result of trial and error
• Kohler's theory of insight learning became an
  early argument for the involvement of cognition,
  or thinking, in the process of learning.

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Type of adaptation

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vwPKlryXwmXk