Section 2 Animal Behaviour What do you think

Section 2: Animal Behaviour

What do you think are different kinds of animal behavior?

Kinds of Behavior Innate Behavior • Behavior that doesn’t depend on learning or experience • Innate behaviors are inherited through genes. • Newborn whales have the innate ability to swim

Learned Behavior • Innate behaviors can be modified. Animals can use learning to change a behavior • Learned behavior is behavior that has been learned from experience or from observing other animals. • Humans inherit the tendency to speak. But the language we use is not inherited.

Survival Behavior 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Finding food Marking territories Defensive action Courtship Parenting

Finding Food • Animals find food in many ways. • Animals that eat other animals are known as predators. The animal being eaten is the prey. • Animals that are predators can also be the prey for another animal.

Marking Territory • A territory is an area that is occupied by one animal or by a group of animals that do not allow other members of the species to enter. • Members of the same species must compete for food and mates. • Some animals claim territories to save energy by avoiding this competition. • Some birds mark a territory by singing.

What is the importance of a territory? Animals use their territories for mating, raising young, and finding food.

Defensive Action • Defensive behavior allows animals to protect resources, including territories, from other animals. they defend food, mates, and offspring. • Some birds use distraction to defend their young. • A rabbit often “ freezes” so that its color blends into a background of shrubs or grass. • But once a predator is aware of its prey, the prey needs another way to defend itself. Rabbits try to outrun predators. • Bees, ants, and wasps inject a

Defensive Action

Courtship • Animals need to find mates to reproduce. • Reproduction is essential for the survival of an individual’s genes. • Animals have special behaviors that help them find a mate. • Some birds and fish build a nest • Other animals use special movements and sounds to attract a mate.

Parenting • Some animals, such as caterpillars, begin life with the ability to take care of themselves. • But many young animals depend on their parents for survival • Some adult birds bring food to their young because they cannot feed themselves at hatching. • Other animals, such as the killer whales spend years teaching their young how to hunt for food.

1. Name five behaviors that help animals survive. 2. How do innate behaviors and learned behaviors differ?

Seasonal behaviour • • Migration Slowing down A biological clock Cycles of change

Migration • To migrate is to travel from one place to another. • Whales, salmon, bats, and even chimpanzees migrate. • Birds in the Northern Hemisphere fly south thousands of kilometers. In the spring, they return north to nest

How do birds find their way • For short trips, many animals use landmarks to find their way. • Landmarks are fixed objects that an animal uses to find its way. • Birds use landmarks such as mountain ranges, rivers, and coastlines to find their way.

Slowing Down • Some animals deal with food and water shortages by hibernating. • Hibernation is a period of inactivity and decreased body temperature that some animals experience in winter. • Hibernating animals survive on stored body fat. • Mice, squirrels and skunks hibernate

Slowing Down • While an animal hibernates, its temperature, heart rate, and breathing rate drop. • Some hibernating animals drop their body temperature to a few degrees above freezing and do not wake for weeks at a time.

Slowing Down • Winter is not the only time that resources can be hard to find. • Many desert squirrels and mice experience a similar internal slowdown in the hottest part of the summer • This period of reduced activity in the summer is called estivation.

1. An animal that lives in a hot, dry environment might spend the summer a. hibernating. b. estivating. c. migrating to a warmer climate. d. None of the above

A Biological Clock • Animals need to keep track of time so that they know when to store food and when to migrate. • The internal control of an animal’s natural cycles is called a biological clock • Animals may use clues such as the length of the day and the temperature to set their clocks.

A Biological Clock • Some biological clocks keep track of daily cycles. • These daily cycles are called circadian rhythms. • Most animals wake up and get sleepy at about the same time each day and night. • This is an example of a circadian rhythm.

Cycles of Change • Seasonal cycles controls: -migration -hibernation -reproduction • Biological clocks also control cycles of internal changes. • For example, treehoppers, go through several stages in life

3. An animal that lives in a hot, dry environment might spend the summer a. hibernating. b. estivating. c. migrating to a warmer climate. d. None of the above

4. Biological clocks control a. seasonal cycles. b. circadian rhythms. c. internal cycles. d. All of the above

Section 3: Social relationships

Social Relationships • Social behavior is the interaction among animals of the same species. • Animals depend on communication for their social interactions. • Communication, a signal must travel from one animal to another, and the receiver of the signal must respond in some way.

Why do animals communicate 1. Many animals, such as the wolves, communicate to defend a territoryfrom other members of the species. 2. Animals also communicate to find food, 3. to warn others of danger, 4. to identify family members, 5. to frighten predators, 6. and to find mates.

Ways to Communicate 1. 2. 3. 4. Sound Touch Chemicals Sight

Sound • Many animals communicate by making noises. • Wolves howl. • Dolphins use whistles and complex clicking noises to communicate with other dolphins. • Male birds may sing songs in the spring to claim their territory or to attract a mate.

Sound • Elephants use low frequency rumbles to communicate with other elephants that are kilometers away. • Humpback whales sing songs that can be heard for many kilometers. • Both species use these sounds to convey information about their locations.

Elephants communicate with lowpitched sounds that humans cannot hear. When an elephant is communicating this way, the skin on its forehead flutters.

Touch • Chimpanzees often groom each other. • Grooming involves animals resting together while picking bits of skin from each other’s fur. • This calm and comfort one another. Through touch, they may communicate friendship or support

Chemicals • The chemicals that animals use to communicate are called pheromones • Ants and other insects secrete a variety of pheromones. • For example, alarm chemicals can warn other ants of danger. • Recognition chemicals announce which colony an ant is from to both friends and enemies.

Chemicals • Many animals use pheromones to find a mate. • Amazingly, elephants and insects use some of the same pheromones to attract mates.

The dance of the bees • A honeybee leader does a “waggle dance” to tell other bees where it has found food. • Other worker bees— followers— gather closely around the dancing bee to learn the details about the food source. • Followers can tell what kind of food was found by smelling the pollen on the leader’s body. Or the leader may spit out some nectar for the followers to smell.

The dance of the bees • The leader dances a figure eight, beating its wings rapidly and waggling its abdomen. • The wings make sounds that communicate information about the food’s distance from the hive. • As the bee goes through the center, it waggles its abdomen. • The number of waggles tells the other bees how far away the nectar is. • The direction of the center line of the figure eight tells the other bees the direction from the hive to the nectar.

Sight • Bees use body language, along with other forms of communication, to spread news about food. • Body language can communicate many ideas. • An animal that wants to scare another animal may ruffle its feathers to look bigger, • or it may show its teeth as a threat.

Sight • Visual displays are also used in courtship. • For example, fireflies blink signals to attract each other. • Animals also use body language when playing.

Living Together • Tigers live alone. Except for the time a mother tiger spends with her cubs • The lion, is rarely alone. Lions live in groups called prides.

The Benefits of Living in Groups • Safer • Spot a predator easily • Defend themselves together (threatened musk oxen will circle their young with their horns pointed outward) • Find food • Kill a larger prey

The downside of living in groups • They must compete together food and mates • It attracts predators • It spreads diseases

Reflective questions 1. Which of the following is NOT an example of social behavior? a. a wolf howling at distant wolves to protect its territory b. a rabbit hiding from a predator c. a ground squirrel calling to signal danger to other squirrels d. a group of lions working together to hunt prey

Reflective questions 2. Describe four ways that animals communicate with each other. Give an example of each type of communication. 3. Compare the costs and benefits of living in a group of animals.