Chapter 13
Animal Behavior
M. Elizabeth
MLK
2005-2006
Review
What is ornithology?
The study of birds
What are the six kingdoms of organisms
1. Archaebacteria - Prokaryote
2. Eubacteria - Prokaryote
3. Protista - Eukaryote
4. Fungi - Eukaryote
5. Plantae - Eukaryote
6. Animalia - Eukaryote
• Classifying Kingdoms
– King Philip came over for grape soda
• Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family,
Genus, Species
– Naming species use the binomial
nomenclature system: 2 names
• Genus species
• T. rex = Tyrannosaurus rex
13.1 What is an Animal?
The Animal Kingdom
• Scientists have named over 1 million
species of animals.
• Animals can be divided into two types of
organisms:
– Invertebrates: animals without a backbone
• More than 95% of all animals
• Insects, spiders, snails, jellyfish, sponges,
worms, etc.
– Vertebrates: animals with a backbone
• Less than 5% of all animals
• Fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals
Student Group Collaboration – Animal Examples
List two animal examples of the following:
1. Arctic animals
2. Antarctic animals
3. Animals that crawl
4. Animals that fly
5. Animals without with no bones
6. North American animals
7. Animals that live in the soil
8. Ocean animals
9. Animals with more than four legs
That’s an Animal?
Animals:
– are multicellular
– are eukaryotic without cell walls
– usually reproduce by sexual reproduction
• Some like sponges and starfish can also
reproduce asexually by budding and
division
– develop from embryos
– have many specialized parts – tissues
– move
– are consumers (eat other organisms)
Embryo Development
4 weeks
7 weeks
10 weeks Embryo.mov
Embryo
Embryo.mov
13.2 Animal Behavior
• Terms
- Predator: hunt and kill their food
- Prey: hunted animals that will be eaten if
caught
- Camouflage: blending in with background
coloration
- Innate behavior: does not depend on
learning.
- Learned behavior: must be learned from
observation or experience
- Migrate: travel from one place to another
and then back again
• Terms
- Hibernation: a short winter period of
metabolic inactivity. NOT sleeping
- Estivation: a short summer period of
metabolic inactivity, during the hottest part of
the summer
- Biological clock – internal control of natural
cycles
- Circadian rhythm – internal control of daily
cycles
- Navigate - to steer a course
- Landmark – a fixed object that is used to
navigate
Survival Behavior
• Looking for lunch – animals used many
different methods to find or catch food:
– Owls swoop from the sky to catch a mice
– Bees fly from one flower to another to
collect nectar
– Animals have adapted to their
surroundings so that they an obtain the
most food using the least amount of
energy
• Giraffe long necked
Survival Behavior
• How to Avoid Being Eaten
– Predator animals eat prey animals.
Predators must consider the danger
involved with the catch – there may be
another animal ready and waiting to kill
the predator.
• Hiding Out
– One way to avoid being eaten is to hard
to see. Rabbits freeze to blend in better.
Leaf insect example
In your Face – horns and spines
• Body Parts that signal trouble to a potential
predators or competitors.
– Bull horns
– Rhino tusks
– Porcupine spines
• Hidden dangers
– Skunk spray
– Bees, ants, and wasps inject a powerful acid
into their “attackers”
– Skins of American dart-poison frog or Papua
New Guinea hooded pitohui (PIT-a-hooey) are
colorful to warn of hidden danger. The hooded
pitohui is the first poisonous bird discovered
anywhere.
Researchers have
found a beetle in the
guts of the pitohui
that carry high levels
of the same toxin
that fills the birds'
feathers and skins
-Strong evidence that
feeding on those
beetles may give the
birds their uniquely
poisonous protection.
Why Do They Behave That Way
• Its in the Genes
– Behavior that doesn’t depend on learning or
experience is called innate behavior.
– Tendencies present at birth – how to swim how to
chew or at maturity – bird singing.
• Animal School
– Behavior that must be learned through observation
or experience is called learned behavior. Humans
speak but language is learned. The lack of learned
behavior is why some young animals raised in
captivity cannot survive in a natural environment.
Seasonal Behavior
• World Travelers – seasonal migration
– Navigation using landmarks or magnetic
fields (magnetite is a magnetic mineral)
– Monarch butterfly
• Slowing Down
– Hibernation in the winter: mice squirrels,
skunks, and bears metabolism slows
– Estivation in the summer when it is too hot:
desert squirrels and mice
• The Rhythms of Life
– Biological Clock – seasonal
– Circadian Rhythm – daily clocks
13.3 Living Together
Most animals interact with their same
species
Social behavior – is the term used for
interactions between animals of the same
species. The interaction can be
cooperative or competitive but in either
case communication is needed.
• Communication – is a signal that must
travel from one animal to another.
Communication
• Helps animals:
– Live together
– Find food
– Avoid enemies
– Protect their home – mark their territory
– Warn others of danger
– Identify family members and friends
– Frighten predators
– Find mates – Courtship is a special behavior by
animals of the same species that leads to
mating via sexual reproduction
How do Animals Communicate
• Animals signal their intentions and
information through:
– Smell
– Sound
– Vision
– Touch
Do you Smell Trouble
• Smell is transmitted via a chemical
• Chemicals used to transmit information via
smell are called pheromones.
• Ants, very cooperative insects, secrete
(release) a variety of pheromones.
– Alarm chemicals are released into the air to
alert other ants that there is danger nearby
– Trail chemical are left along a path so that
others can follow to find food and to return to
the nest
– Recognition chemicals are on an ant’s body to
tell other ant’s which colony they are from
(friend or foe)
Do You Hear What I Hear?
• Animals communicate by making noises
– Wolves – howl
– Dolphins and whales use whistles and
complex clicking noises to communicate
with one another
– Male birds may sing in the spring to claim
territory or attract a mate.
• Sound is a signal that can reach a large
number of animals over a large area.
– Elephants sounds that are so low pitched
that humans cannot hear but elephants
can up to several kilometers away.
Showing Off
• Many forms of communication are visual
– Body language is how our body is
positioned to share a feeling or thought
– Bird preen
– Mammals – mutual grooming
– Trying to scare another animal will do
something to make it appear larger. It
may ruffle its feathers or fur or open its
mouth and show its teeth
Getting in Touch
• Some animal also use touch to
communicate
– Honeybees “dance” to show other bees
where the good flowers are by observing
and touching the dancing bee.
Part of the Family
• Some animals are solitary – tigers
• Most are social – lions
– Lions live in groups called prides
• Benefits of living in a group
– Safer: large groups can spot danger and
cooperatively defend the group
– Easier to find food: Solitary animals can kill only
smaller animals while group predators that hunt
cooperatively can kill prey much larger than
themselves
• Downside of Living in a Group
– Attract predators
– Need more food
– Can compete with each other for food and mates
– Spread diseases
Chapter Review Questions
1. Natural bath sponges used to be living
plants. True or False?
2. Which of the following lists contains types
of organisms that are NOT animals?
a. corals, birds, kangaroos
b. dolphins, cactuses, whales
c. spiders, humans, sponges
d. sea anemones, fish, slugs
3. If the following organisms is an invertebrate
write an “I” and an “V” if it is a vertebrate.
_____ beetles _____ mammals
_____ worms _____ spiders
4. The activities that animals perform, such as
building homes and stalking food are called
____________.
5. Survival behaviors help animals find food,
water, and a place to live, and help them avoid
being eaten. True or False?
6. Animals use different methods in order
to obtain the most ________for the
least amount of _________
7. Predators hunt and eat other _______,
called prey.
8. How does the hooded pitohui bird
defend itself from predators?
a. Its bite injects a powerful acid into its attacker.
b. It is covered in spines.
c. It can spray a chemical that smells very bad.
d. Its skin contains a toxin that can kill a predator.
9. Animals always know instinctively what to do.
True or False?
10. Innate behavior cannot be changed.
True or False?
11.The tendency of humans to speak is a(n)
_____ behavior but the language we speak is
a(n)________ behavior.
12. Which of the following does NOT happen
during hibernation?
a. The animal’s heart rate drops.
b. The animal survives on stored body fat.
c. The animal’s temperature increases.
d. The animal does not wake for weeks at a time.
13. Some desert animals experience an internal
slowdown during the summer. True or False?
14. An animal with a skull and a backbone is
__________. An animal with no backbone is
______________.
(an invertebrate or a vertebrate)
15. A behavior that does not depend on
experience is __________. (innate or learned)
16. In the summer, an animal enters a state of
reduced activity. The animal is _________.
(estivating or hibernating)
17. Daily cycles are known as
________________ .
(biological clocks or circadian rhythms)
18. When an egg and a sperm come together, they
form ____________.(an embryo or an organ)
19. Some birds use Earth’s magnetic field
a. to attract mates.
b. to navigate.
c. to set their biological clocks.
d. to defend their territory.
20. __________ is not an example of how
animals might deal with a food shortage.
a. Migration c. Social behavior
b. Estivation d. Hibernation
21. Reading is an example of
a. an innate behavior.
b. a behavior controlled by genes.
c. a learned behavior.
d. an inherited behavior.
22. All _________ lack a skull and backbone.
a. vertebrates c. multicellular organisms
b. Eukaryotes d. invertebrates
23. The use of _________ is an example
of chemical communication.
a. camouflage
c. hibernation
b. pheromones d. estivation