Open Directory - Science: Biology: Zoology: Animal Behavior
See also: This category in other languages: - This article aims to organise existing data to test the theory that, when a behavior has been established in response to a certain stimulus, novel stimuli resembling the first will usually elicit the same response. [PDF] - The eusocial naked mole-rat is the mammalian equivalent of a social insect. This article discusses how and why the dominant queen and the infertile workers cooperate for the benefit of the whole colony. - An introduction to animal reproduction, maternal strategies, living in groups, dominance and male behavior. The rest of the site deals with human gender roles, variance and identity. - Describes research into the extent to which female birds choose their mates according to their vocal ability. - Describes the wolf-pack social order as it occurs in nature, discusses the alpha concept and social dominance and submission, and presents data on the precise relationships among members in free-living packs. - A free online textbook from Wikibooks. - Information from McMaster University, Canada on the research program and undergraduate courses available. - Overview of current research at Macquarie University, Australia, with detailed material on each project. - Article from Wikibooks explaining that, by learning how the senses gather information, a better understanding of behavior is gained. - Daniel Mills and Gill Sheppard describe an evolutionary approach to the analysis, assessment and treatment of behavior problems. - The University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada examines how an understanding of the behavior of domesticated animals and poultry can contribute to their welfare. - Researchers at Edinburgh University are using both evolutionary and behavioral approaches to try to understand the factors that shape animal cognitive abilities. - Provides links to current scientific literature in the field of animal cognition. Includes journal articles, reviews, books and relevant websites. - By studying bees as individuals and as a colony, Stephen Taber researches how their behavior may be changed to our benefit. The site also provides a sourcebook for beekeeping. - This multimedia cyberbook provides a comprehensive survey of this area of comparative research with chapters by top international scientists. - Discusses how baboons and impala interact. Offers scientific observations and images. - A project studying the behavior of bees as individuals and as a colony, including a live feed from a hive. - Current research at Hunter College, New York, concentrates on the multiple sensory systems that fish use to detect moving and sound-producing objects, including the gymnotiform fishes that use electricity to communicate. - This essay describes the behavior of birds that lay their eggs in the nest of another species, with links to other essays covering similar topics. - Article by James Mallet in which he discusses whether the unpalatable species that copy one another for their mutual benefit evolved together. [PDF] - Research into brain function and behavior, communication and higher cognition in animals as undertaken at the University of New England, Australia. - This foundation supports worldwide turtle and tortoise research and produces a journal – Chelian Conservation and Biology. - A searchable database of chimpanzee cultural behaviors. - Abstract of an article by Randolf Menzel and Martin Giurfa examining the extent to which adaptive behaviour in honeybees exceeds elementary forms of learning, and identifying the neural mechanisms involved. [PDF] - Article arguing that a greater insight into behaviors such as animal orientation, song learning, mate choice and foraging is achieved by tackling the subject from more than one starting point. [PDF] - Tamas Szekely provides a really short, illustrated guide to the family life of birds. [PDF] - Temple Grandin discusses his views on animal consciousness, using comparisons from his experience with autism, citing scientific evidence on other neurological disorders which affect consciousness. - Communal breeding occurs when more than two birds of the same species provide care in rearing the young from one nest. - Kathryn Arnold and Ian Owens test the hypothesis that cooperative breeding tends to occur in species with low annual mortality because this leads to overcrowded populations. [PDF] - Article discussing the symbiotic association between gophers and chewing lice, creatures whose life histories are conducive to parallel speciation. [PDF] - How old is the association between a given parasite and its host? Rod Page at the University of Glasgow tries to answer this question. - Researchers at the Darling Marine Center at the University of Maine, examine the commensal relationships of octocorals with brittle stars and marine scale worms. - Dedicated to conservation of and education about dolphins and whales. Research projects include dolphin echolocation. - Article from the Journal of Neuroscience on patterns of behavior, including the activation of neural circuits, during the formation of a dominance hierarchy in crayfish. - The role of individual differences and patterns of resolution in the formation of dominance orders in domestic hen triads. - Article discussing the strange behavior adopted by some birds in using ants in preening or in some instances, lying down among ants. - Moti Nissani details his research into elephant behavior, cognition and senses, with sounds and video clips. - Annotated links to resources on animal behavior and instincts. - A literature database for researchers in the field of animal cognition and equine science. - An essay written by Robert Sapolsky in 1996 on violence between male baboons, ageing and friendship. [PDF] - Tables of contents, contacts and subscription information from this journal by Blackwell Publishing. - Institute that researches bioacoustics and animal communication, especially of endangered species. - An example of mutualism, fig wasps only live for a few days but manage to perform their amazing task of finding and pollinating the flowers that are hidden deep inside the fig. - Describes certain behaviors that can indicate pain in fish and the behavioral evidence for the perception of pain by fish. - Details of research carried out by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center on the behavior of fish with varying numbers of prey species and fish densities. - This free software quantifies and compares statistical measures of group size. It differentiates between outsiders' view (group size) versus insiders' view (crowding) measures, controls for the ties among data points in the latter case and handles biased distributions correctly. - Article from the National Geographic Magazine on how the chimpanzees on the savannas of Senegal are hunting bush babies with spearlike sticks. - Outlines research carried out by Katheryn E Arnold using co-operative breeding Noisy Miners (Manorina melanocephala) in Australia on whether mobbing behavior assisted reproductive success. [PDF] - An investigation into the visual cues required to coordinate the complex cooperative behavior involved in hunting. [PDF] - A brief survey of important scientists in the history of the study of animal behavior. - Research in Gene E. Robinson's lab that studies the mechanisms of social behavior in honey bees. - Article from the New Scientist discussing the factors that turn a relatively harmless cloud of insects into a devastating plague. - Article by Devorah Bennu on the strategy used by hummingbirds to conserve energy in order to survive long cold nights. - Excerpt from a book by Gould and Gould discussing the tests that Kohler set the chimpanzees he was marooned with during the First World War. - Austrian organization that investigates major unsolved problems in behavioral and evolutionary ecology. - Current research includes the ecological and evolutionary basis for animal behavior, avian behavioral ecology, and what behaviors help an animal to adapt to its environment. - This article discusses the reasons for migration, its advantages and disadvantages, and the different patterns of migration adopted by different bird groups. - Researchers at James Cook University are studying the life histories of several endangered Australian marsupials. - Article by Ken Muldrew on mammalian hibernation, sleep and torpor. - An online animal behavior video database available in various formats. Most clips filmed in Japan. - Article by Stephanie Doucet and Robert Montgomerie on their research into the interrelationship between bower features, plumage coloration, and indicators of male quality in this species. - Outlines a study of the Red Bishop, a colony breeding weaverbird from sub-Saharan Africa, and examines aspects of male nest-building behavior and resulting male reproductive success. [PDF] - Peter E. Midford's research in coding animal behavior descriptions, particularly ethograms using ontology. - Article discussing monogamous birds and those that change partner, and why such divorces occur. [PDF] - This centre in Australia provides habitats for long term field studies, especially on monotremes, free from the impact of introduced species. - L Charles Birch discusses self-organisation as exampled by termites, ants and slime moulds, where patterns of behavior are determined, not by some centralised authority, but by local interactions about decentralised components - Provides information on a research project in Nepal to study the communication and defense behaviour of the Asian Giant Honeybee, Apis dorsata. - Notes on Chapters 2 to 7 of this book covering aspects of communication, learning, memory, evolution and social organisation. - A comprehensive source of information on the biology of sharks and rays including behavioral studies. - Details of the current research projects being undertaken at the Mammal Research Unit at Bristol University, England. - Affiliated with the University of Basel, Switzerland. Focuses on the behavioral ecology of passerines. - Paper by Tamas Szekely, Gavin Thomas and Innes Cuthill examining the different reproductive payoffs for male and female birds of adopting various diverse breeding systems. [PDF] - Research at the Borgia Lab concentrates on understanding the evolution of the complex sexual male displays in the Satin Bowerbird, Ptilonorhynchus violaceus. - A research group at the University of Oslo, Norway. Primary focus is on the study of sexual imprinting in small passerines. - Article by Rhett Butler on camouflage as used by animals and the three forms of mimicry utilized by both predator and prey. - Research at the University of Nebraska covering a broad range of behavioral and cognitive studies on birds, each combining psychological and biological perspectives. - EURING coordinates bird ringing throughout Europe and promotes research needed to inform the conservation and scientific understanding of wild birds. - Article by Francis Gilbert describing Batesian mimicry and discussing the extent to which hoverflies succeed in mimicing bees, wasps and bumblebees. [PDF] - Birds and animals have often been seen using plants, soil, insects or fungi as 'medicines'. William Astor explains his findings on this remarkable ability with regard to Estrildid finches. - A long-term study of ant colony behavior, organization and ecology undertaken by Deborah Gordon and her colleagues at Stanford University. - Noel Egenter outlines his research into the ability of apes to weave branches into a stable construction and whether this requires a definite learning process. - Research by Dean Waters into the auditory systems sensitive to ultrasound possessed by these moths and their ability to recognise and respond to the echolocation sounds emitted by bats. [PDF] - A searchable database of insect pheromones and semiochemicals, now covering over 7000 species of insect. - Situated at the University of Texas, this lab is addressing questions concerning the evolution and function of animal behavior. Most of the work centers on frogs and fish. - C M Heyes revisits the question asked by Premack and Woodruff, "Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?" This question dominates the study of both social behavior in nonhuman primates and cognitive development in children. - Researchers at Cambridge University investigated whether male meerkats trade off their cooperative contributions to pup feeding against searching for mating and dispersal opportunities. [PDF] - Article by Richard Dawkins argues that we should ask “Which animal is benefiting from this behavior?” rather than asking “In what way is this animal benefiting from this behavior?” Parasites are used to illustrate this thesis. - Suresh Benjamin and Samuel Zschokke observed the behavior involved in the construction of a three dimensional, irregular web. [PDF] - Researchers at the Wildlife Institute of India examine the hypothesis that among lekking males of the species Antilope cervicapra, variations in lekking costs are related to differences in mating benefits. [PDF] - Mimicry is a great example of evolution by natural selection. Outline of a lecture on the subject from the Evolutionary Genetics course at University College, London. - Article by Devorah Bennu examining whether grandmothers play any part in the cooperative rearing of young birds. - Dedicated to the general public education of the behavioral habits of the wolf. Includes data on reproduction and diet. - Discusses ongoing field research concerning the behavioral habits of the Fishtrap wolf pack in northwest Montana. - BBC's Natural History Unit gathers information from correspondents, scientists and amateur naturalists to monitor migrating mammals, birds and insects as they travel. - Ira Flatow and guests look at thought and communication in apes, gorillas and monkeys [Real Audio broadcast]. (January 16, 2004)
