Lecture 1: History of Ethology

Charles Darwin Description of Ethology

• animal’s behavior must have adaptive value in variants of behavior inherited so has ability to survive and produce offspring

• morphology evolve’s through natural selection

Study of ethology

animal behavior under natural conditions

Founders of Ethology

• Niko Tinbergen

• Konrad Lorenz

• Karl Von Frisch

Bee Color Vision Case Study

• Von Hess thought bees were colorblind because they flew to brightest exit

• Therefore he thought they were colorblind

• Showed bees can tell difference between red and blue feeders and will return to rewarding feeder

Control Experiment: blue square in different shades of grey

• to see if bees would go to shade of grey that matched blue

• but only went to blue square

How did researchers make sure they (bees) actually favored the color?

• change square after bee would go on it to make sure they did not favor body odor and imprint on squre

Moral

• Design experiments to study behavior under natural conditions

What is the legacy in animal cognition based off case study

• bee learning

• navigation

• sensory perception

Ethogram

behavioral inventory