Questions tagged [ethology]
The study of animal behaviour.
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How to quantify the strength of social bonding between the individuals of a colony? How to compare the strength of social bonding across the species?
Consider two different species of honey bees. If I have to compare the strength of social bonding between the two species i.e. in which species, social bonding between the individuals is stronger than ...
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What is the mechanism behind scruffing?
Also called 'clipnosis' or pinch-induced behaviour inhibition. It prevents cats from moving around when you hold the nape of their neck. There's a lot of veterinary research on how effective this ...
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Which predator / prey pair of species have the most drastically different body size?
I'm trying to identify which 2 species, one predator species and one prey species that have the biggest size difference. Specifically, which predator hunts the largest prey relative to itself?
I'm ...
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Comparing the role of fathers in different species
In species where the male of the species is involved with the life of his offspring in what species is the role he takes is the same as the role of the mother, and in which species is it overlapping ...
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Behavioural experiment on Nasonia Wasps
I want to see how two male Nasonia vitripennis interact with each other. I have been using enamel paint on their heads to distinguish them, but I am wondering if any other methods of marking them ...
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Phonotaxis and Preference
(Am I losing my mind?) I could have sworn there was solid research indicating that phonotaxis evidence for preferences (during ex situ experiments) was "held up" by en situ experiments...(by ...
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Chronic-stress of predation risk in vertebrate prey
Prey must be vigilant when their predators are around.
Predators may affect mortality (and morbidity, i.e. loss of quality of life) through these mechanisms:
Direct attacks, including injuries ...
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Do songbirds prefer clean water?
The other day, the water in our backyard birdbath (Eastern US) had become fairly murky. So my wife cleaned it out and replaced it with fresh. Seemingly immediately began an amazing run on the thing. ...
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Do some animals have a notion of cooking? [duplicate]
Humans turned the concept of feeding themselves into a whole field in which they rearrange ingredients so as to obtain specific flavours and so on. It's more effort than just feeding ourselves.
Do ...
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Do lions crabwalk?
Cats turn sideways arch their back and puff their fur, to apppear bigger, when trying to intimidate someone. Do lions do that? What is the largest feline that does that?
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How do bees and wasps react to carnivorous plants?
I seem to recall that bees and wasps have alert pheromones, so that if a few of them are killed or attacked in the proximity of others, they will attract backup.
I assume it's pretty straightforward ...
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Do birds grieve and feel emotion?
Crows are surprisingly clever with tool making/use and even understanding displacement water over sand! Clearly there's some relatively high level cognitive processes going on up in those avian brains....
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Do animals exhibit handedness (paw-ness?) preference?
I have been observing my cat and found that when confronted with an unknown item, she will always use her front left paw to touch it.
This has me wondering if animals exhibit handedness like humans ...
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Can the concept of fisherian runaway be explained using simple models?
I want to understand the concept of fisherian runaway. Dawkins' book tells about this, but it's not clear enough. It can be seen that the essence of Fisher's idea is that when a male peacock with a ...
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Why would a snake follow a kayak?
We live on the shore of Kentucky Lake in Middle Tennessee and kayak often. A common snake here is the Northern watersnake. Observing several of these snakes over a period of ten years, I am puzzled ...
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Which animals do bait hunting?
By bait hunting I mean some predator which first collects or finds some bait (food of its prey) and then uses the bait to lure and catch its prey. This question is inspired by this video showing an ...
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Why don't Australian magpies in Tasmania swoop at people?
I'm currently living in Tasmania (Australia) and I have noticed that Magpies don't swoop at you here, yet they do in other parts of the country.
Just wondering: does anyone know why?
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Are there any parasites that alter human behavior in a self destructive way?
There seems to be quite a few examples of parasites taking over the behavior of insects in a way that leads to the death of the host. A couple of examples include:
Spinochordodes tellinii: A ...
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Can we infer the orientation of a moose's head from the teeth patterns on tree trunks?
Background
I am interested in studying the distribution and patterns of behaviour of moose (Alces alces).
Moose chew bark off of the trunks of trees, especially Populus tremuloides. See some of the ...
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Predatory animal tracking methods
As far as I know, humans are the only animals that use visual references to track prey that is not immediately visible to them.
Do any other animals do this?
I'm not referring to stalking prey ...
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How do mosquitoes know if they are going 'up'?
I have read articles that say mosquitoes detect humans through carbon dioxide exhalation and body odour. When we wave our hand around a mosquito, it usually flies away from ground (even if it ...
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Do moose usually browse woody foilage approximately perpendicular to the long axis of the branch?
I am trying to improve my understanding of moose browsing behavior. One basic question is whether browsing on woody vegetation can tell us anything about the orientation of the moose's head. The ...
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The pollination of lupins
Do lupins produce nectar? According to this study it seems like there are conflicting conclusions regarding this. And in this study the supposed inability for Lupinus argenteus to produce nectar is ...
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Are there any examples of social animals which show collective behavioral change in response to disease?
When Covid-19 happened, collective behavioral changes were taken in order to curb the spread of the virus by the human race. Do things like these happen in other animals as well? Like isolating a ...
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Polyandry in birds
The Wikipedia article on Bateman's principle states:
Until recently, most bird species were believed to be sexually
monogamous. DNA paternity testing, however, has shown that in nearly
90% of bird ...
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Do dingoes show wolf 'characteristics'?
I've read that Russians have been performing selective breeding on Red Foxes for about fifty years, aiming to make them tame. The wikipedia article says
The experiment was initiated by scientists who ...
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Where do birds and squirrels go to die?
This may sound like a silly question, but I have been wondering about this for a while. I live in a suburban neighborhood with a lot of trees. A lot of trees means birds and squirrels. You can hear ...
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Do crabs actually "rip the legs off of other crabs" if they try to escape a bucket?
I read this strange remark:
Picture a bucket full of crabs with no lid. The moment a crab tries to get out, the other crabs will literally rip its legs off.
It was said as something that is common ...
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Do some birds really clean themselves using wet leaves?
While researching native shrubs to put in my garden for bird habitat, I read that some birds will take advantage of bushes to clean themselves by rubbing themselves against a wet leaf after rainfall (...
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Why is this giant water bug out of the water?
I recently took a picture of a giant water bug actually out of the water.
Every instance that I have seen these of critters they have always been in the water (sometimes even feasting on frogs), but ...
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Is there "limbic mimicry" in real life to distract animals? (like it was portrayed in "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore")
In the movie "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore", one of the characters comes up with the idea of "limbic mimicry" to distract dangerous animals from violent behavior. ...
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Do *Ambystoma macrodactylum* predate on *ceuthophilinaens* like the one I observed?
I observed this Ambystoma macrodactylum within half of a meter of this Ceuthophilinaen under an old board. I can imagine salamanders eating cricket-like things, but this question is far outside my ...
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Do species other than humans have distinct daily feeding patterns?
I have a general interest in complex adaptive systems and I have found that nature and the organisms within it is a perfect natural case of a rich adaptive system with a lot of possibilities for ...
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Has anyone seen/read interspecies competition that is different at spatial scale for the same group of animals?
I work at a highly fragmented wildlife sanctuary in North Borneo, Malaysia. We have 8 species of hornbills here and from our observation they've grown to be less territorial in terms of where they ...
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I had an encounter with a cougar (mountain lion). What does the recurrence time look like?
I had an encounter with a cougar recently. I was walking down a muddy old forest service road when approximately 15-20 meters behind me a deer burst out of the brush with a cougar chasing it close ...
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Why do spinner dolphins spin?
Spinner dolphins have a behavior where they jump out of the water and spin a bunch of times in the air. Wikipedia's article on this just states
These spins may serve several functions
and doesn't ...
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The "truce of the watering hole" -- is it completely discredited?
In short, the idea comes from Kipling that animals observe a sort of truce around watering holes and prey animals do not have to be on guard (as much?) from predators in the vicinity.
I have read ...
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Crow branch pecking behaviour
I was walking through a small park when two crows started cawing at me, and followed me, flying from tree-to-tree as I walked. I speculate that this is a territorial or protective behaviour, but what ...
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What is the phenomenon when animals mimic other animals in order to survive?
The caterpillar Hemeroplanes triptolemus adopts the appearance of a snake when it detects danger. What is this phenomenon called in which animals mimic other animals in order to survive? Is it ...
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Giant inflatable laboratory in the jungle. How to find it?
When I was a child (circa year 2000), I watched a documentary (in English) about some biologists doing research about jungle (perhaps Amazon). The biologists lived in a base which was a huge ...
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Harbor Seal behavior and personality
I'm doing some research on Harbor seal behavior, but I haven't been able to find much on general behavior such as personality, quirks, ect. Does anyone have anyone have any firsthand experience with ...
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Why do bees fly inside the gaps between the decoration on the exterior wall of a building and the wall?
My house has decorations around the windows on the exterior wall:
There are gaps between those decorations and the bricks of the building:
During the summer, there are always bees looking for those ...
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What are the migratory patterns of Orcas in the Pacific Northwest? Do they pass by Vancouver in the Fall?
What are the migratory patterns of Orcas in the Pacific Northwest? Do the pass by Vancouver in the Fall?
I know you can never predict the sightings of a wild creature, but I was wondering what the ...
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How many of their caches do chickadees retrieve?
Chickadees are scatter-caching birds and I've heard they can hide as many as 10,000 seeds for retrieval over the winter. How many of these cached seeds actually end up getting used in a typical winter?...
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Do whales ever just hang out on the surface breathing?
You only ever hear of whales surfacing for a brief second to exhale/inhale before they dive back down. But do they ever just stay at surface level, laying there with their blow hole up in the air, ...
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Why is wombat scat (feces) shaped like cubes?
I've heard that wombat scat is cube shaped, but I don't understand how that can happen. Has anyone studied the phenomenon? What would the evolutionary pressure have been to cause this?
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Why is this bumblebee attracted to a methane leak?
In this video from Bloomburg Quicktake, the reporters discover at a methane well (Skip to 14:21) a GHG leak that has attracted bumblebees. Does natural gas smell sweet to bees? Why would the bees be ...
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Why do wild lizards often tap with their front leg?
I have a lot of wild lizards (possibly Podarcis muralis) in my garden, and I have noticed some of their behavior I'd like to understand:
whenever they are in 'still' position on any surface, they are ...
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Do the activity patterns of an owl species determine their eye colour?
Recently I've been thinking about the colour of owl eyes, and trying to figure out if there is a pattern anywhere between species.
I have read for example, that yellow-eyes implies they are day time ...
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Little owl as decoy for skylark
I read that hunters used (now is forbidden) little owls tethered to attract skylarks.
They say this is due to their magnetic look of the eyes.
I didn't find any scientific documentation of this. Any ...
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