Animal behaviour: Quick Facts

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Photos and Videos

American crow against a natural green background.

Diagram illustrating sex-linked inheritance of white and red eye color in Drosophila fruit flies, showing genetic crosses between white-eyed and red-eyed males and females, with chromosomes and resulting eye color traits mapped through two generations.

Diagram illustrating three types of natural selection-stabilizing, directional, and diversifying-showing how each affects the distribution of beetle phenotypes in a population over multiple generations. Shaded areas indicate phenotypes selected against, and arrows show shifts in population traits.

Common starling (Sturnus vulgaris) perched on a bare branch, showing iridescent black feathers with white spots against a clear blue sky.

A brown cow in a grassy field scratches its face with a long-handled brush, with trees and a house in the background.

Observe an anole change its skin colour for camouflage and fan its dewlap to mark possession or attract a mate

Learn about bats' roosting, flying, and dietary habits and their echolocation sense

Survival struggles in a meerkat colony

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Topics

Animal learning Animal social behavior moose yard stranding web combat dance anting nest-mate eviction roosting necking human behaviour Zoo reptile fish drug use Bird insect Philosophical anthropology mammal motivation

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Key People

Konrad Lorenz

Konrad Lorenz

Austrian zoologist

Temple Grandin wearing a black shirt with colorful floral embroidery and a white necktie, standing in front of a patterned HBO backdrop.

Temple Grandin

American scientist and industrial designer

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Karl von Frisch

Austrian zoologist

Donald Redfield Griffin

Donald Redfield Griffin

American biophysicist

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C. Lloyd Morgan

British zoologist and psychologist

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Theodore Christian Schneirla

American animal psychologist

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Nikolaas Tinbergen

Dutch zoologist

Lubbock, John, 1st Baron Avebury

John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury

British banker, politician, and naturalist

Lion (panthera leo)

Deadliest Animals Quiz

The bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) is seen in Switzerland on December 2024

Animal Factoids

Mute swan with cygnet. (birds)

Match the Baby Animal to Its Mama Quiz

Sea otter (Enhydra lutris), also called great sea otter, rare, completely marine otter of the northern Pacific, usually found in kelp beds. Floats on back. Looks like sea otter laughing. saltwater otters

Animal Group Names