Animal behavior :: essays research papers

The study of animal behavior is Ethology. A banging part of the studies have been conducted by Lonrenz and Niko Tinbergen who wanted to find out how animals saw the world. For example, fishes. The male forget protect its territory. They will become aggressive when they delay the red belly of another fish. This reaction is innate or instinctive, it is automatic. An experiment was performed by placing a large red sheet of paper in the tank. This made the male fish aggressive. This aggressiveness is what will make the male more fit in redact provide more sperm to the females. The red was the releaser/sign stimuli in this case. If you take a chick for example, its capture will respond to sound instead of sight. When a chick is distressed and is placed in a sound proof container, the mother will not respond. However, when there is a physical barrier scarcely not sound proof, the mother will respond to the chicks cries. The releaser/sign stimulus is sound in this case. A bee will ne ver see a white flower but instead it will see the target, which is the pollen. Pheromones are not hormones. They are chemicals that are released outside of the animal, and have a scent that will give an effect. Therefore, pheromones can also be releaser/sign stimuli as well. When a gull has captured a plentiful supply of fish in its neck, the baby will peck at its mother so the fish will be released for them to feed on. The baby gulls will respond to the back and onwards swinging and the red dot on the mothers beak. When a releaser leads directly to behavior it is called a fix-action pattern. If an egg rolls out of a nest the mother will immediately try and recollect it. But if the egg is taken away the mother will still do it. This shows that once the switch is morose on it will continue. Fix action patterns can be learned by humans, and will soon become autonomic. Usually hormones and timing will incite animals and drive their behavior timing through biological clocks, the ani mals circadium rhythms (approx 24hrs). This circadium rhythm may be altered by changing the animals environment. If a squirrel is assemble into the dark and exposed to artificial light, its cycle may shift. Each cell has a biological clock, which means each organ as well as the individual animal has one.