2/20/2023

Patters of Behaviour

Ref.: Biosociology – A study guide by Martin W. Schein

What is behaviour?
• A behaviour is a coordinated movements
or series of movements made by one
animal in response to another animal or
physical environment.

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Patters of Behaviour
Ref.: Biosociology – A study guide by Martin W. Schein

• What is behaviour?

• A behaviour is a coordinated movements or series

of movements made by one animal in response to
another animal or physical environment.

Two different kinds of behviour

• Innate behaviour: that are expressed
from birth
• Learned behaviour: behaviours that are
learned as the animal gains through
experience with its surroundings.

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Broad categories of Behaviour

• Individual Behaviour: An animal
normally does (or can or will do) alone.

• Social Behaviour: An animal normally

demand interaction with at least one
other individual.

Broad categories of Behaviour

Individual Behaviour Social Behaviour
• Ingestive behaviour • Sexual behaviour
• Eliminative behaviour • Parental behaviour
• Shelter - seeking behaviour • Care-soliciting behaviour
• Investigatory behaviour • Agonistic behaviour
• Sleep behaviour
• Anti-predator behaviour
• Play behaviour

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Ingestive Behaviour
• All activities related to taking in of nourishing substances,
either solid or liquid is known as Ingestive behaviour.
• It is broader term than the more limited term of “eating”,
“drinking” or “feeding”, which appears in more specific
contexts.
• Patterns of ingestive behaviour are determined by the
nature of the characteristics of foods and or various
species.
– the ingestive patterns exhibited by seed eating birds are
different from humming birds.
– sucking insects differ from biting insects – in their approaches of
food.

Eliminative Behaviour
• All activities related to the elimination of waste
products is known as Eliminative behaviour.
• In most species, the acts of individuals without
regard (consider/paying attention) to the presence or
absence of others.
• Some eliminative patterns are quite elaborate:
– Burial of feces
– Urine markings – to convey specific information to others

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Shelter-seeking Behaviour
• All activities that the animal undertakes in an effort
to achieve environmental homeostasis is known as
Shelter-seeking behaviour.
• Activities such as burrowing, nesting, getting in out
of the rain, etc.
• Under some conditions, shelter-seeking behaviour is
a highly social activity
– example: the nest constructed by a mated pair of birds.
– Neverthless, in most animal species, it is generally an
individual activity.

• Homeostasis is a key concept in understanding

how our body works. It means 'keeping things
constant', and comes from two Greek words
homeo, meaning 'similar' and stasis, meaning
'stable'.

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Investigatory Behaviour
• All activities that the animal undertakes to achieve
the familiarization of the immediate environment is
known as Investigatory behaviour.
• It is important to the survival of the individual.
• This behaviours are seen inversely related to age,
probably because the older individual is well known
in its surrounds.

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Sleep Behaviour
• sleep is a naturally recurring state occur almost in all
species, often it appears with others in a social context.
• But isolated individual can and will sleep.
• There is no need for multi-animal interactions in order
for sleep to be expressed.
• Sleep patterns vary in different species:
– Postures in terrestrial forms range from hanging to standing to
sitting to lying.
• Behavioural sleep and physiological sleep might be quite
different.

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Sleep Behaviour
• sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by
altered consciousness, relatively inhibited sensory
activity, and inhibition of nearly all voluntary
muscles.[1] It is distinguished from wakefulness by a
decreased ability to react to stimuli, and it is more
easily reversed via stimuli than the state of
hibernation or of being comatose.

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Anti-predator Behaviour
• It includes all acts, performed in response to
immediate threat to the life of the individual.
• Difference between defence from predator and
defence from conspecifics.
• Differences:
– Loss of an encounter with a predator usually leads to
death.
– But loss of an encounter with a conspecific rarely leads to
death.
• Interspecific defence behavioural patterns differ from
those exhibited in intraspecific defense.

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Play Behaviour
• In ethology, play is a range of voluntary, intrinsically
motivated activities normally associated with
recreational pleasure and enjoyment.
• Play is most commonly associated with children and
their juvenile-level activities, but play can also be a
useful adult activity, and occurs among other higher-
functioning (non-human) animals as well.
• Play can be and is exhibited by individuals that do
not have the benefit of company.
• If receptive individuals are around, then play takes
on social forms.
• Generally the levels of play behaviour are inversely
related to age.

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Social behaviour
1. Sexual behaviour
2. Parental behaviour
3. Care-soliciting behaviour
4. Agonistic behaviour

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Sexual behaviour
- Since at least two individuals are involved,
complex signal systems have been
developed.
- The behaviour patterns of sexual behaviour
depends:
- Species specific
- Within species, gender specific.

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Sexual behaviour

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Sexual behaviour

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Parental behaviour
1. Parental behaviour is also termed
“epimeletic” behaviour (maternal
behavior; caring for her young in the
early stages)
2. It includes all those activities associated
with the care of the young.

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Parental behaviour

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Parental behaviour
(All those activities associated with the care of the young)

 nursing
 grooming
 Brooding
 feeding
 nest building
 defending the
young
 cleaning

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Parental behaviour
1. Depending upon the species, parental
behaviour may be exhibited by
1. the mothers only,
2. fathers only,
3. both the mother and father (or)
4. neither the mother nor the father as in flies &
invertebrates.
2. In some case, parental duty assumed by
individuals other than the parents as in
honey bees.

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Care-soliciting behaviour
1. It describes those actions on the part of one
animal that lead to attention or care
provided by another.
2. The young solicits attention from its parent.
3. In addition to interactions with parents, this
behaviour can also be observed among less
closely related individuals and in older
animals as well.
- Presenting for grooming in adult primates.
- This behaviour appear in courtship in many
species.

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Care-soliciting behaviour

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Agonistic behaviour
1. It includes all acts related
to competitive
interactions between
individuals
2. The intensity of agonistic
behaviours ranges from
simple threats to overt
challenges to outright
physical combat and its
resolution.

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competitive interactions

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Agonistic behaviour
1. It includes all acts related to competitive
interactions between individuals
2. The intensity of agonistic behaviours ranges
from simple threats to overt challenges to
outright physical combat and its resolution.
3. Since agonistic behaviours are based upon
competition for one resources or another,
resolution of the conflict usually means that
one member gains the resources (i.e. wins)
while the other give up the resource (i.e.
loses) at least for the moment.

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Agonistic behaviour
1. Agonistic behaviour are two sided:
1. Winning side: threats, attacks, fights, chases are
observed.
2. Losing side: avoidances, submissions, retreats, defenses
and fights are observed.
2. The term “aggression” is to denote the individual
which initiates the encounter.
3. Thus, the animal that attacks another is exhibiting
aggressive behaviour, the attackee will respond
accordingly, probably by fight or flight behaviour.
4. Both are exhibiting agonistic behaviour, but only one
is aggressive.

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Patters of Behaviour

Ref.: Biosociology – A study guide

By
Martin W. Schein

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