Animal Behavior Lab
Isopods, fruit fly, red worms, and
termites
Review isopods
• Behavior is an animal’s response to sensory
input and falls into two basic categories—
learned and innate (inherited)
• Orientation behaviors place the animal in its
most favorable environment. In taxis, the
animal moves toward or away from a
stimulus. Taxis is often exhibited when the
stimulus is light, heat, moisture, sound, or
chemicals.
Review isopods
• Kinesis is a movement that is random and
does not result in orientation with respect to a
stimulus. If an animal responds to bright light
by random movements in all directions, it is
called kinesis.
• Isopods live in damp, often dark,
environments where they eat plant and
animal matter. They usually will exhibit taxis
in these environments.
Animal Behavior using termites
• Many animals that communicate through
odors emit chemical substances called
Pheromones.
• Pheromones are especially common among
mammals and insects and often relate to
reproductive behavior.
• Pheromones can be very effective at
remarkably low concentrations.
termites
• We will test pheromones using ink pens, they
are said to have the same chemicals as the
pheromones used in some insects.
• Termites use pheromones for trails, alarms,
aggregation, recruitment, mating, and other
things.
• Most of these, like the trail pheromones, last
only a short time.
Worker termites
• We will work with worker termites.
• Workers are totally white and about ¼ inch in
length, and do not have mature wings.
Part A
• Materials: Petri dish, filter paper, ink pen,
paint brush, stop watch.
• Method/procedure: students should place 3
termites on the filter paper and observe and
record their activity, asking questions such as,
“Do the termites exhibit any pattern to their
movement?” or “Do they go in any particular
direction?”
Method/procedure
• After recording the termites’ activity, they
should then begin to draw straight lines with
the pens; one at a time, in the area where the
termites are located on the paper.
• They should record which color ink and type
of pen (manufacturer) caused the greatest
reaction and what type of reaction they
observed.
Part B
• Students should brainstorm about other
things they could test using the pens
(pheromones) and list these below. Students
will design an experiment and perform the
experiment as part B. Students should have a
controlled experiment use the guide on online
classroom to help you organize your thoughts.
• We will try part B on Thursday.