Introduction to Animal Behavior
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Have you ever wondered how animals interact with each other and with their surrounding environment? Many people do not know that there is a science dedicated to studying animal behavior, it is Ethology. Animal behavior includes all the processes through which animals perceive the external world and the internal state of their bodies, and react to changes. Many of these processes take place inside the nervous system and may not be noticed.
Animal bodies are in a state of homeostasis, that is, there is equilibrium between their internal and external environment. The state of homeostasis is divided into two types: static or physical homeostasis, which maintains the internal environment constant, and dynamic or psychological homeostasis, which adjusts the internal environment to the changes in the external one.
We can classify animal behavior into two types. The first type is innate, it passes from one generation to another, and includes the behavior that is needed to maintain animal life, such as ingestion, rest, sleep, and reproductive behavior. A vital behavior we observe in animals is the care-giving behavior, which is highly important for survival. The care of a mother to her offspring is the most common type and is usually described as maternal behavior.
All mammals allow their offspring to suckle; a mother dog or cat will spend almost 24 hours per day with her offspring during the first week besides nursing. However, not all mothers are alike; the female rabbit visits her offspring only once per day and allows suckling only for a few minutes. As she has many kits (baby rabbits) you will notice that some of her kits will not suckle at all; thus, becoming very weak and will not survive. Moreover, the mother rabbit may eat her own kits if she was stressed during parturition by the presence of foreigners or predators as dogs and cats. Thus, any disturbance at that time should be avoided and make sure her food contain adequate amount of calories and protein.
The second type of animal behavior is the acquired one. Animals learn gradually through their lifestyles the correct responses to certain situations. Learning is considered an adaptive change in behavior, which results from past experiences. It takes place in the memory, and starts with the initial formation of short-term memory and then the formation of long-term memory.
We may sort the acquired behavior into different categories, this includes habituation. When animals are subjected to repeated stimuli, they may gradually start to respond as if the stimulus is harmless; in other words, the animals learn not to react. A horse will not panic any more when near traffic; it gradually becomes used to the sound and no longer afraid of it. On the other hand, if it is harmful, the response is exaggerated, this is known as sensitization. For example, a dog becomes more frightened of a car backfire, and this scare becomes associated with all cars.
Another type of behavior that can be acquired by learning is associative learning. In this type, an animal remembers its past experiences and modifies its behavior accordingly. A basic type of associative learning is the conditional reflex, which was investigated by Russian physiologist, Ivan Pavlov, at the beginning of the 20th century. Pavlov repeatedly offered food to a dog after ringing a bell; when the dog heard that ring without being offered food, the dog would still respond to the bell as if food was offered. After collecting the dog’s saliva, Pavlov found that the amount of saliva produced by bell ringing increased even without the food because the dog was more frequently exposed to the coupling of food and bell ringing. Here the dog has learned to associate the sound of the bell with food.
There is also exploratory learning, which is very important for animals because it enables them to find their way, to know their environment, and to remember its characteristics and landmarks. Animals also learn to avoid eating a food that is associated with illness, particularly gastrointestinal malaise; this type of learning is known as taste aversion or bait shyness. This form of learning can be recognized by anyone trying to rid their farms of rats. A first use of a certain poison usually kills many rats; however, after applying the same poison again, we will notice that few numbers of rats are killed. The animals that survived from the sub-lethal dose will not eat that food again.
The animal world is an amazing pure world that is full of many surprises and a large variety of behaviors that make ethology a fast-growing field to qualify us to give animals their proper need of management and to know how they think.
References
Animal and poultry behavior and management set books, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Alexandria University.
animalsciencecollege.com.au
sparknotes.com
The article was first published in print in SCIplanet printed magazine, Autumn 2017 Issue.
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