animal behavior

• Animal behavior includes all the ways animals interact with other organisms and the physical environment.
• Behavior can also be defined as a change in the activity of an organism in response to a stimulus, an external or internal cue or combo of cues.
• To fully understand a behavior, we want to know what causes it, how it develops in an individual, how it benefits an organism, and how it evolved.
• Some behaviors are innate, or genetically hardwired, while others are learned, or developed through experience. In many cases, behaviors have both an innate component and a learned component.
• Behavior is shaped by natural selection. Many behaviors directly increase an organism's fitness, that is, they help it survive and reproduce.

Introduction

Do the squirrels in your neighborhood bury acorns underground? Does your cat start meowing around the time you usually feed her? Do you start hanging around the kitchen when it’s close to dinnertime?

If you've noticed any of these things, congratulations—you've made your first observations in behavioral biology! These are all examples of animal behaviors. Yep, you and I count as animals too. In fact, these behaviors are just a tiny sampling of the amazing and diverse behaviors we can see in nature.

1start superscript, 1, end superscript Other behaviors are learned, such as your tendency to hang around the kitchen at dinnertime or your ability to read the words on this screen.