Animal Behavior
Notes: What is an Animal?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNPY9evldis
Characteristics of Animals
Animals, which are
members of the kingdom
Animalia, are multicellular,
heterotrophic, eukaryotic
organisms whose cells
lack cell walls.
Type of Animals
Invertebrates include all animals that lack a backbone, or
vertebral column.
 All chordates exhibit four characteristics during at least one
stage of life: a dorsal, hollow nerve cord; a notochord; a tail
that extends beyond the anus; and pharyngeal pouches.
Example of Invertebrates
Invertebrates include
sea stars, worms,
jellyfishes, and
insects, like
butterflies.
Chordates
Animal Behavior
Notes: What do Animals do to Survive?
 Animals must maintain homeostasis
by gathering and responding to
information, obtaining and distributing
oxygen and nutrients, and collecting
and eliminating carbon dioxide and
other wastes. They also reproduce.
Maintaining Homeostasis
 All organisms must keep their
internal environment relatively
stable, a process known as
maintaining homeostasis
 Homeostasis is maintained by
feedback inhibition, or negative
feedback, a system in which the
product or result of a process limits
the process itself.
Gathering and Responding to Information
The nervous system gathers information using cells called
receptors that respond to sound, light, chemicals, and other
stimuli.
Other nerve cells collect and process that information and
determine how to respond.
Gathering and Responding to Information
Animals often respond to the information processed in their
nervous system by moving.
 Muscle tissue generates force by becoming shorter when
stimulated by the nervous system.
Obtaining and Distributing Oxygen and
Nutrients
All animals must breathe to obtain oxygen. Small
animals that live in water or in wet places can “breathe”
by allowing oxygen to diffuse across their skin.
Obtaining and Distributing Oxygen and
Nutrients
 All animals must eat to obtain nutrients.
 Most animals have a digestive system that acquires
food and breaks it down into forms cells can use.
Collecting and Eliminating CO2 and Other
Wastes
Animals’ metabolic processes generate carbon dioxide and
other waste products, some of which contain nitrogen in the
form of ammonia.
Many animals eliminate carbon dioxide by using their
respiratory systems.
Reproducing
Most animals reproduce
sexually by producing haploid
gametes.
 Sexual reproduction helps
create and maintain genetic
diversity, which increases a
species’ ability to evolve and
adapt as its environment
changes.
Animal Behavior
Notes: Elements of Behavior
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_3s4V9FLVA
37:57
Behavior and Evolution
 Behavior is the way an
organism reacts to stimuli in its
environment.
 Behaviors are essential to
survival. To survive and
reproduce, animals must be
able to find and catch food,
select habitats, avoid
predators, and find mates.
Behavior and Evolution
Some behaviors are
influenced by genes and
can be inherited.
Behavior that is influenced
by genes increases an
individual’s fitness, that
behavior will tend to spread
through a population.
Innate Behavior
Innate behaviors are also
known as Imprinting.
Innate behaviors appear
in fully functional form the
first time they are
performed, even though
the animal has had no
previous experience with
the stimuli.
Learned Behavior
The four major types
of learning are
habituation, classical
conditioning, operant
conditioning, and
insight learning.
Habituation
Habituation, the simplest type of learning, is a
process by which an animal decreases or stops its
response to a repetitive stimulus.
Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning is
a type of learning in
which a certain stimulus
comes to produce a
particular response,
usually through
association with a
positive or negative
experience.
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning
occurs when an animal
learns to behave in a
certain way, through
repeated practice,
sometimes described as
a form of trial-and-error
learning.
Insight Learning
Insight learning occurs when an animal applies something
it has already learned to a new situation.
Animal Behavior
Notes: Animals and Their Environment
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFDGPgXtK-U
Behavior Cycles
 Behavioral cycles that occur daily, are
called circadian rhythms.
 Seasonal behavior is migration, the
seasonal movement from one
environment to another. Migration
allows animals to take advantage of
favorable environmental conditions.
Social Behavior
Choosing mates, defending
or claiming territories or
resources, and forming
social groups can increase
evolutionary fitness.
Social Behavior
 Courtship is behavior during which members of one sex advertise their
willingness to mate, and members of the opposite sex choose which mate
they will accept.
 Territory, that they defend against competitors. Territories usually contain
resources, such as food, water, nesting sites, shelter, and potential mates,
which are necessary for survival and reproduction.
 Societies can offer safety from predators and can also improve animals’
ability to hunt, to protect their territory, to guard their young, or to fight
with rivals.
Communication
 Animals may use a variety of signals to communicate
with one another.
 Visual signals- males and females have different color
patterns, and males use color displays to advertise
their readiness to mate
 Chemical Signals- some animals release pheromones,
chemical messengers that affect the behavior of other
individuals of the same species, to mark a territory or
to signal their readiness to mate.