Animal social behavior

Introduction
General characteristics
- Categorizing the diversity of social behavior
- The range of social behavior in animals
- A historical perspective on the study of social behavior
The how and why of social behavior
- Proximate versus ultimate causation
- Strong inference and the scientific study of social behavior
The ultimate causes of social behavior
- Social interactions involving sex
- Social interactions involving the costs and benefits of parental care
- Social interactions involving the use of space
  - Aggregation and individual protection
  - Cooperative foraging
- Social interactions involved in monopolizing resources or mates
  - Territoriality
  - Dominance
- Social interactions involving movement
- Social interactions involving cooperative breeding and eusociality
- Social interactions involving communication
The proximate mechanisms of social behavior
Evolutionary psychology and human behavior

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images & Videos

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania: herd of gnu (wildebeests)

A white man in a blue shirt stands in front of an illustrated blue background with fish and the text "animal car wash?" across his chest, referencing animal mutualism.

A herd of bison (Bison bonasus) grazes in tall prairie grass with mountains visible in the background.

A herd of vicuna crosses a white salt pan in the Atacama Desert, Chile, with snow-capped Taapaca Volcano and rugged mountains in the background.

Animal social behavior: Media

biology

A white man in a blue shirt stands in front of an illustrated blue background with fish and the text "animal car wash?" across his chest, referencing animal mutualism.

How Different Animal Species Work Together

What do you call this type of animal friendship? Mutualism, of course.

Video: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Observe a predatory lion pride in a typical day of grooming, playing, hunting, eating prey, and sleeping

Observe a predatory lion pride in a typical day of grooming, playing, hunting, eating prey, and sleeping

Lions (Panthera leo) engaging in various activities such as hunting, eating,...

Video: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Know how monkeys use different alarm calls for specific dangers and how some birds can understand these alarm calls

Know how monkeys use different alarm calls for specific dangers and how some birds can understand these alarm calls

How forest primates communicate specific dangers in ways that even birds understand.

Video: © World Science Festival (A Britannica Publishing Partner)

Observe the aggressive social behavior of territorial perciform jawfish fighting over burrow proximity

Observe the aggressive social behavior of territorial perciform jawfish fighting over burrow proximity

Two jawfish (family Opistognathidae) engaging in a territorial dispute.

Video: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Canada geese

Canada geese

Migration of Canada geese (Branta canadensis) from their breeding grounds...

Video: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Red deer rivalry during mating season

Red deer rivalry during mating season

Two red deer (Cervus elaphus) battling for dominance during the rutting...

Video: Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania: herd of gnu (wildebeests)

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania: herd of gnu (wildebeests)

Herd of gnu (wildebeests) in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.

© Index Open

Army ants

Army ants

A horde of army ants (Eciton).

Copyright Gary Retherford/Photo Researchers

A herd of bison (Bison bonasus) grazes in tall prairie grass with mountains visible in the background.

European bison (Bison bonasus)

A small group of European bison (Bison bonasus) grazing near the mountains.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

A herd of vicuna crosses a white salt pan in the Atacama Desert, Chile, with snow-capped Taapaca Volcano and rugged mountains in the background.

Vicuna (Vicugna vicugna) herd

Herd of vicuna (Vicugna vicugna) crossing a salt pan in the Atacama Desert, Chile.

© Jeremy Richards/Dreamstime.com

Lek

Lek

Lek behavior in three great-tailed grackles (Cassidix mexicanus).

Michael J. Plagens

Queen bee

Queen bee

A western honeybee (Apis mellifera) queen attended by worker bees in the...

© Paul Starosta—Stone/Getty Images

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

British naturalist Charles Darwin, c. 1870.

Julia Margaret Cameron/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-ds-16381)

E.O. Wilson

E.O. Wilson

American biologist E.O. Wilson, 2007.

© Sage Ross (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Millipedes

Millipedes

Millipedes (class Diplopoda) mating on a branch.

©Stockbyte/Getty Images

Damselflies

Damselflies

Two American rubyspot damselflies (Hetaerina americana) mating.

© Joe Balynas

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.

Types of natural selection

Three types of natural selection, showing the effects of each on the distribution...

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Young Kirtland's warblers in a nest with female

Young Kirtland's warblers in a nest with female

During the bird's breeding season in late spring, it makes nests of grasses, pine...

© G. Ronald Austing/Science Source

Butterflies

Butterflies

Aggregation of pink-edged sulfur butterflies (Colias interior).

John H. Gerard

A school of schoolmaster fish, Lutjanus apodus, with silver bodies and yellow fins, swims closely together above a coral reef in the clear waters of the Cayman Islands.

Schoolmasters

Schoolmasters (Lutjanus apodus) on a reef in the Cayman Islands.

© Jim Lipschutz/Shutterstock.com

A small herd of caribou (Rangifer tarandus) stands together on open ground with a dense evergreen forest and hills in the background.

Caribou

A herd of caribou (Rangifer tarandus).

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Musk oxen (Ovibos moschatus)

Musk oxen (Ovibos moschatus)

Musk oxen (Ovibos moschatus) grazing in Bering Land Bridge National Preserve,...

Nichole Andler/U.S. National Park Service

A grid diagram illustrating the Hawk-Dove model, with hawk and dove animals representing aggressive and passive strategies in resource fights. Each cell shows outcomes, payoffs, and risks depending on whether a hawk or dove encounters another hawk or dove.

Payoff matrix

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

An American Crow, Corvus brachyrhynchos, struts on a wooden surface holding a peanut in its beak.

American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos)

© Al Mueller/Shutterstock.com

Two male gemsbok (Oryx gazella) lock horns in a fierce fight, kicking up dust on the plains of Etosha National Park, Namibia.

Gemsboks

Gemsboks (subspecies of Oryx gazella) locking horns during the mating season.

© johan63—iStock/Getty Images

Twins in space

Twins in space

Identical twins Mark (left) and Scott Kelly were part of a NASA study on the impact...

Robert Markowitz/NASA

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