Download Behavioral Responses in Animals

Behavioral Responses in Animals
6-3.4 Explain how environmental stimuli cause physical responses in animals (including shedding, blinking, shivering, sweating, panting, and food gathering).
6-3.7 Compare learned to inherited behaviors in animals.
Environmental Stimuli
Environmental conditions an animal lives in can cause all types of responses in animals.
Shedding
- Purpose: to maintain internal temperatures in a climate that fluctuates between hot and cold
- animals may form thick coats of fur or feathers to insulate their body from cold weather;
(sometimes a different color to help camouflage)
- in hot weather animals will shed this extra covering, providing a cooling effect.
Blinking
- Purpose: involuntary automatic response that helps to protect the eye
- Keep moisture and remove irritants
-Some animals need to blink to keep their eyes covered with a tear film that serves to protect the eye from drying
out and from potential infection.
-In dry climates, blinking rates increase, especially in desert areas where wind and dust add to irritants in the air.
Some animals have adaptations to help them with this situation.
-Reflex when startled
-also serves to protect the eye from being injured if a foreign object comes near the eye or attack
-Some animals have an additional eyelid called the nictitating membrane that allows them protection when striking
at their prey.
Shivering
- Purpose: endotherm (mostly mammal) mechanism to increase heat production
- Involuntary (automatic) response to a drop in the temperature outside or within the body.
- Method that the body uses to increase the rate at which energy is transformed into heat.
- Produces heat through friction
- It is more efficient at warming than moving around because it reduces blood flow to the
skin, which keeps the blood in the core of the animal where it stays warm.
- Shivering requires a lot of energy.
- Animals that don’t migrate begin fattening up for winter to make sure enough energy is
present to shiver through the cold.
Sweating
-Purpose: major way of getting rid of excess body heat.
-When sweat evaporates from the surface of the skin, it cools the animal. Energy efficient way to cool off.
Panting
- Purpose: another way of getting rid of excess body heat.
- When an animal pants (breathes heavily), increased air flow causes an increase in evaporation from
the animal’s mouth and lungs, cooling the animal.
- An animal’s tongue has a tremendous amount of blood flowing through it. As an animal
pants, its saliva evaporates and pulls heat out of the animal’s body. Animals that do not have a lot of
sweat glands require panting in hot areas.
Food Gathering
- The process of finding food by hunting or fishing or the gathering of seeds, berries, or roots, may be seasonal.
- As environmental conditions begin to change, some animals will begin to gather food for the winter or summer when food
supplies run low or out completely. These animals do not migrate to follow food supplies, but store food to ensure
survival.
Food Gathering Continued:
Storing food:
- Many animals will begin to gather and store food for the winter. Examples: squirrels, mice,
or beavers.
Storing nutrition in the form of fat:
- Many animals will overeat and reduce their physical activity to conserve energy in response
to environmental stimuli such as cold weather or drought.
Examples: bears, penguins,
walruses, chipmunks, or ants.
- An environment itself can cause a change in the way an animal gathers food. If an animal eats only one type of food, then
it can adapt to be really efficient at getting its prey. Birds have different shaped beaks for just this purpose.
Learned vs Inherited Behavior
- An animal is born with certain behaviors it already knows how to do. Other behaviors or traits have to be picked up or
learned as the animal grows up.
Types of Behaviors
Learned
Inherited (Innate)
- Has to be practiced to be perfected.
- Behavior that an animal is born knowing how to do
- Trial and error is the main process for learned - Instinct
behavior.
- Genetically hard-wired in their DNA, passed from parent to offspring
- Develops when organism interacts with its
- Stimulus and Reflex Response
environment.
- “Nature”
- “Nurture”
Examples: walking (for humans), tying shoes,
Examples: reflex responses to stimuli, spinning a web, breathing,
using a toilet, talking and language, reading
swallowing, eating, flying south for winter, ability to swim for whales
and writing, imprinting, conditioning
and fish, baby crying in response to hunger/thirst/sleepiness, snail digs
a hole to lay its eggs, bird builds a special kind of nest, fiddler crab
waves its claws to attract a female
Imprinting
- A behavior in which newborn animals recognize and follow the first moving object they see. Usually, this moving object is the mother. - The imprinting behavior cannot be reversed.
Conditioning
- Behavior in which an animal learns that a particular stimulus and its response to that
stimulus will lead to a good or bad result.
- includes trial-and-error learning
- Ex: chimpanzees learn to use small sticks to dig in the soil for insects, or a child learns that
touching a hot object will cause pain.
- Classical Conditioning: A learned behavior that results from positive reinforcement to
certain stimuli.
7. Which of the following is NOT conditioning?
A. Pet runs for can opener
B. You walking outside
C. Pet goes crazy at doorbell ring
D. You getting up at the bell
8. Which is instinctive behavior?
A. A puppy cuddling its human owner.
C. A young child learned how to read.
B. A duckling swimming after its mother.
D. A kitten learning to use a litter box.
9. What can you infer about the instinctive behaviors of many animals?
A. They are usually fairly useless in the wild.
C. They usually revolve around obtaining food and safety.
B. They usually revolve around avoiding humans.
D. They are usually taught to them by their mothers.
10. A scientist places a rat in a maze on 5 occasions. She finds that the rat runs the maze faster each time. This
demonstrates that __.
A. The rat is motivated by a desire to please humans. C. The rat’s reflexes are all in working order.
B. The rat’s instincts are extremely sharp.
D. The rat has the capacity to learn new behaviors.
11. Which of the following is an example of a reflex?
A. Moving back quickly when you hear a loud noise.
C. Staying away from a neighborhood you know is dangerous.
B. Salivating when you hear the sound of a can opener. D. Recalling a 10-digit phone number from memory.
12. You should “Sit!” at your dog and give it a treat when it obeys. Eventually, the dog will sit whenever you command
it. Why?
A. It’s learned a few words of English.
C. It’s afraid that you will punish it if it doesn’t sit.
B. It associates sitting on command with receiving treats. D. It automatically relaxes when it hears the sound of your voice.
13. A type of learning in which an animal makes several attempts before getting a task correct is called _____________.
A. insight
B. conditioning
C. imprinting D. trial and error
14. A social attachment formed right after birth, usually the first thing a newborn sees, is called _____________.
A. Insight
B. conditioning
C. Imprinting D. trial and error
15. A cat approaches when the sound of a can opener.
Identify the stimulus: _____________________ the response: _____________________ Learned or Inherited?___________
Behavior
1. Pill bug curls up when touched.
2. A dog sits when told.
3. A baby cries when hungry.
4. A young child rides a bike.
5. A reptile hibernates.
6. Spider spins web correctly on first try.
7. You blink when dust gets in your eye.
8. A person speaks English.
9. A cat falls and lands on its feet.
10. A horse walking within minutes of being born.
Inherited/Innate
Learned