Behaviour and Communication Flashcards
What is a natural behaviour?
Behaviours that animals perform in the natural world
What is a atypical behaviour?
Behaviours performed in captivity
What is the physical defence crypsis?
When an organism can avoid detection through camouflage
What is the physical defence aposematism?
When an organism uses bright coloration to advertise that its dangerous
What is the physical defence mimicry?
Copying/Imitation of a harmful species to avoid predation
What is the physical defence thanatosis?
Where an organism pretends to be dead to avoid predation
What is the physical defence posture’?
When animals puff themselves up or move in a way to intimidate predator
What are specialist predators?
They limit themselves to one type of prey and spend a lot of time sleeping and little hunting. Adapt better to confines of zoo
What are opportunistic predators?
Kill anything they can catch and have active lives involving hunting. Don’t adapt well to captivity
What are scavengers?
Feed off unwanted carcasses and avoid danger of active killing. Food is often of poor quality
What are grazers?
Extract their nutritional requirements from a mass of veg matter
What are browsers?
Seek appropriate food from leaves and trees
What are filter feeders?
Pass a current of water through their bodies in which they extract food
What is the optimal foraging theory?
Where an animal will maximise food consumption or minimise feeding time in order to survive. Decisions on whether to stay in an environment where there is more food but competition or move to an area with less food but less competition.
What did Konrad Lorenz do?
Studied instinctive behaviours in greylag geese and jackdaws, he came up with imprinting. Saw that behaviours are mostly innate but influenced by environmental stimuli.
What is imprinting?
Where animals bond instinctively with the first moving object within the first few hours of hatching
Who came up with classical conditioning?
Ivan Pavlov- dog saliva and bell
What is an ethogram?
A catalogue or table of all the different kinds of behaviour or activity observed in an animal.
What are the two methods of measuring behaviour?
Continuous recording and sampling.
What is sampling?
Samples of behaviour are recorded and is often frequency instead of time related
What is focal sampling?
All the actions of one animal are recorded for a specified time period. E.g. a dog is recorded for 5 minutes and all the activities in that time period are noted down.
What is scan sampling?
The behaviour of each animal in the group is recorded at one minute intervals for a twelve hour period.
What is behaviour sampling?
Continuous observation but only certain behaviours are recorded in detail.
What is instantaneous sampling?
Observing the animal at given time points and recording their behaviour at that point
