Animal Basics
The scientific study of animal behavior.
What is ethology?
Chemical messengers that transmit signals between neurons.
What are neurotransmitters?
An animal's approximately 24-hour internal cycle.
What is a circadian rhythm?
The process of finding and obtaining food.
What is foraging?
Seasonal movement from one region to another.
What is migration?
The scientist who developed four key questions for studying animal behavior.
Who is Niko Tinbergen?
The system involving the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and adrenal glands.
What is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis?
An environmental cue that synchronizes an internal clock.
What is a zeitgeber?
Physical differences between males and females of the same species.
What is sexual dimorphism?
The internal restlessness animals experience before beginning migration.
What is Zugunruhe?
The four-part framework scientists use to investigate the causes and purpose of animal behavior.
What are Tinbergen's Four Questions?
A hormone involved in the body's stress response.
What is cortisol?
Behaviors that are genetically inherited rather than learned.
What are innate (instinctual) behaviors?
The process through which traits that improve mating success become more common.
What is sexual selection?
The ability to detect Earth's magnetic field.
What is magnetoreception?
A researcher records every action an animal performs, using detailed descriptions so other scientists can identify the same behaviors.
What is an ethogram?
This brain structure helps regulate the body's internal clock and coordinates circadian rhythms.
What is the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)?
An animal stops responding to a harmless sound after hearing it repeatedly.
What is habituation?
One species benefits from this type of interspecies interaction which the other remains unaffected.
What is commensalism?
This occurs when an individual becomes more likely to migrate as more members of its group begin migrating.
What is the quorum response?
This occurs when researchers interpret animal behavior by applying human emotions or actions to it.
What is anthropomorphism?
This reversing process occurs when cortisol feeds back to deactivate the hypothalamus and reduce the stress response.
What is negative feedback?
This process involves pairing a behavior with a reward or penalty to increase or decrease the likelihood of that behavior.
What is operant conditioning?
This retains juvenile traits and behaviors into adulthood, and is commonly observed in domesticated animals.
What is neoteny?
These smells can help animals recognize familiar locations and return to their birthplaces.
What are olfactory cues?