Talk:Ethology

message: Hmm, not much practical information on Ethology, and that while it's potentially one of the most exciting[1] sciences in existence. 
One of the more notable things is that Ethology doesn't just use Empiricism and theory of science, like most sciences,  but it actually occaisionally goes all the way back to Epistemology to resolve problems with differences in perception between observer and observed.
[1] Exciting in the sense that in field research, it's said to help if you're a good runner. 
Kim Bruning 15:06, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misc 

message: I removed these edits by User:Bobble, User:Wikiconcarne, and User:Wikiwikifresh (all of who are pretty clearly the same person).  There seems to be actual information in here, although not much of use as far as I can tell.  I don't have time to go through it right now, so I'll look at it later or you decide.  --128.218.169.187 19:47, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverted 

message: Animal Behavior
When most people think of goats, they think of high jumpers and strong climbers.  In the case of the Tennessee fainting goat, the goat is medium sized compared to its relatives and neither jumps high nor can climb very strongly.  These goats might seem like they are hurting themselves every time they fall over, but their muscles actually become stronger because of fainting.  Tennessee fainting goats are fascinating creatures that use a defense mechanism that developed because of a combination of recessive genes.  Tennessee Fainting goats (Capra hircus) are often called stiff-leg, nervous, wooden-leg, and scare goat.  This type of goat originated in Tennessee due to a genetic defect that caused these goats to develop myotonia congenita.  Myotonia congenita is a condition that is caused by a combination of recessive genes.  These goats do not actually faint, and myotonia has nothing to do with the goat’s central nervous system.  This condition only affects the goat’s external muscles, which makes the goat’s external leg muscles to become stiff.   Stiffness in the external muscles can lead younger goats to fall over while older goats learn to lock their legs and still stand.  Although these goats might fall over and seem to pass out, myotonia will not harm any internal organs.  The goats remain conscious during the whole experience and will regain mobility to its legs within ten to fifteen seconds after it has fallen down.  The effects of myotonia can also vary due to the intensity of how frighten the goat becomes when it is scared.  The goat is more likely to fall down when the level of fright becomes higher.  The Tennessee fainting goat also uses fainting as a defense mechanism by pretending to be dead.  Because of the myotonia, the Tennessee fainting goat’s muscles have more overall muscle mass than its other relatives.  Tennessee fainting goats become very full and wide because of the increase muscle mass.  This goat is sometimes called meat goats because of the better quality of meat they produce since their muscle contract more often and increase striated muscle because of myotonia.  Other than increasing muscle mass, myotonia serves a purpose to shepherds as well.  Although sometimes fainting does not work to the goat’s advantage, Shepherds keep fainting goats within their flock of sheep to allow the sheep to get away while the fainting goat is sacrificed.  When wolves attack the herd, the fainting goat becomes startled and falls down.  The wolf will go after the goat that is immobile rather than expending energy to chase the sheep.  Other than falling over when scared, the Tennessee fainting goats can also be distinguished from other goats by their bulgy eyes and long erected ears.  Tennessee fainting goats have high reproductive rates and are in heat most of the year, which make them excellent animal to breed.  They are also docile creatures are less prone to escape as oppose to other goats.  They make excellent pets and make a good dinner because of their quality of meat. 
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--Wikiwikifresh 23:45, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Myontonia in Tennessee Fainting Goats 

message: Ignacio Zabaleta
Biology Undergraduate
Loyola University, New Orleans
     
In the animal world, the amount of energy that a given sex puts into the care of its offspring dictates the level at which it is able to decide on which partner is suitable for mating.  The luxury of having the opposite sex audition for an opportunity to mate is earned through the responsibility of caring for the ensuing offspring.  In the majority of terrestrial animals, the way that the reproductive social structure works is that males compete with each other in order to gain an opportunity to copulate with a female, who is the one that chooses the worthy sex partner.  Once a sexual relationship is attained and the deed is done, the male usually then leaves the female to go off in search of another sexual encounter.  The male need not worry about his progeny because while the male is out, prowling for a new mate, the female stays behind to care for the young.  
When it comes to marine life, however, the roles between males and females become blurred.  There is far more concern of the males for their offspring.  Some species of fish guard the area where their eggs are kept.  Some species of male fish even go as far as brooding the eggs in their own mouths.  Nonetheless, no fish shows their determination for patriarchal care for their young as much as the seahorse, or class Syngnathidae.  “During mating, the female transfers eggs into or onto specialized egg-brooding structures that are located on either the male's abdomen or its tail, where they are osmoregulated, aerated, and nourished by specially adapted structures.” ([])  This physical and energetic commitment seriously warps any semblance of the idea of the sexual roles of males and females to the point of near perversion.  As it may be concluded from this strange fact, because of this increased attention to offspring on the males behalf over the amount of energy expenditure that the females donate to their young, there must be a resulting role reversal in terms of the social interactions for sexual partner selection.  In fact, for the most part, there is. As the role of parental care is switched from the female to male, so is the mating competition changed from male-male to female-female.  This means that in this reversed situation, the females must compete against one another for an attempt to transfer her eggs into the male.  Here the male is the determining factor in which female’s eggs get fertilized.  Accompanying this new set of rules is the change in sexual dimorphism.  “True to predictions…several species are sex-role reversed (e.g., Nerophis ophidion, Stigmatopora nigra, Syngnathus typhle), with females that are more vividly colored and striped than males.” ([])  The pouches of different seahorse species differ in complexity, showing a range of energy investment.  Within this range, as the level of brood pouch complexity, or energy investment, increases, so does the frequency of sex role reversals. 
--Wikiconcarne 23:20, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Male Brooding in the Syngnathidae and Its Effects on Sexual Behavior 

message: No resources were used in this spurt of ideas. The lack of practical information needs to be fixed. Using a search engine can help get information from real ethologists. For the moment, however, I suggest the following. Behavior is action and reaction. Actions are aligned with goals, whether the goals are cognitively derived (thanks to the cortex) or "natural". There are some common behaviors across animal species and hence some common goals. Both a human and a cat stretches and yawns, as do many other animals, however no plant has been observed to yawn to my knowledge. Perhaps the best way to go about presenting practical information would be to go through the evolutionary tree and discuss the common behaviors that each animal under animalia displays; hence, the common goals would also be a point of discussion. It is likely that such discussions will include terms from the biological evolution article and phrases such as "survival of the fit". If at some point in the tree it looks like a behavior is possessed by an entire phyla, the behavior will be discussed on the page for phyla instead of being repeatedly included on the individual species pages. Answering the four questions on the page at the moment seems like a good idea if implemented on each branch of the evolutionary tree. Comments? -- kanzure 13:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fixing the lack of practical information 

message: I added Robert Ardrey, since his book has inspired many to study ethology.  I wonder if 
some other popular advocates of ethology, such as dog trainer Patricia B. McConnell, should be added as well.  Such advocates will be the first and perhaps only exposure many people 
have to the field.
--Coloradoauthor 23:49, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope of list of ethologists 

message: I don't see any sources cited in on this page. Why is that? --illumi 01:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  sources 

message: * Hi, I've performed a [| major mod] on the article. I have added many practical information, images and examples, although there is still much to be done. I'm not a native English speaker, and I was translating and partially merging from an exstensive and well-documented article I wrote on the subject in Italian, which I licensed via CC. There may be grammatical errors and/or some sentences with an unusual structure -- sorry, I did this quite in a hurry ;). Please revise it. It's looking better now, isn't it?  --Outspan 11:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major Update 

message: I don't think animal behavior should redirect here. It would be like redirecting animal to zoology. Ethology still deserves its own article, but animal behavior should be addressed separately. Richard001 01:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know, the two things are practically the same -- ethology is the scientific approach to the study of animal behavior so all the scientific facts should go under ethology. What would you put in animal behavior instead? -- Outspan [talk ·  contribs] 07:08, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well I only use Italian encyclopedias ;) what's written in there? -- Outspan [talk ·  contribs] 07:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Animal behavior (33 pages) Ethology (very brief). Richard001 08:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is definitely an error to have "Animal Learning" redirected here. Animal learning, as discussed in any introductory psychology textbook or in the scientific literature, is the study of basic principles of learning as independently of the species of animal being studied as possible. T. E. Whalen, 27 November 2007  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.92.60.20 (talk) 17:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree, and Britannica has a expert written article on animal learning too if anyone needs some inspiration (they also seem to have a brand new one on animal behaviour, which is also pretty good). Redirecting animal learning/Learning here is no better than redirecting to learning, so the redirects are probably best deleted. I'm still sure separate articles are better. This one would discuss the history of ethology more and go into more details on methodology. It will be a bit of work to split them though, and as always there is a poverty of editors... Richard001 (talk) 09:32, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Animal behavior vs. ethology

message: ...or Lat. ethologia, ætiologia, etymologia, entomologia—don’t confuse them. I’ve just removed an incorrectly put out spelling aethology from this article, most certainly inspired by having confused the term with etiology, also known as aetiology.
Reference: Ethology (this), Etiology, Etymology, Entomology.
—6birc, 18:36, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethology, aetiology, etymology, entomology... 

message: I removed the hatnote - they are designed to distinguish between possibly confused existing pages.  Having a redlinked hatnote is unnecessary and silly.  If the page existed for Animal Behavior (journal), a hatnote is an excellent idea, but it is not useful to navigate to a non-existent page.  WLU (talk) 20:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hatnote 

message: The article says: "Of course, not all behaviours are altruistic, as shown in the table below. Notably, revengeful behaviour is claimed to have been observed exclusively in Homo sapiens."   Is this really true?  I remember when I was a kid, my friend used to throw his cat around and really make it angry.  When he left, the cat would take revenge by pissing on his bed.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.45.5.250 (talk) 01:05, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to agree, I actually used to have a cat that would claw the backs of your legs if you scolded it, the second you turned your back. Animals generally aren't maliciously revengeful the way many people seem to expect, but I have heard various accounts of other primates enganging in activities that were pretty clearly meant to be revenge. Wish I could remember where. But the sentence only states that revenge is "claimed" to be "observed" exclusively in H. sapiens, so it looks okay the way it is, at least for now. 97.104.210.67 (talk) 02:29, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a documented story of a vengeful camel. Wapondaponda (talk) 03:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Elephants don't forget. Some don't forgive. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:28, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revenge 

message: I changed the class templates today to C class from Start class. This is clearly not a starting article though it has serious issues, not ready for B class. It uses a minimal number of sources and has limited citations of same. It appears that its organization could bear some attention and its at the point where redundant material could more easily be cut but the sourcing appears to be its biggest difficulty.Trilobitealive (talk) 03:07, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Article class change

message: What is the reason for adding names to the list of notable ethologists without  links ?  I haven't checked all of them. But at least two seem to be just good narrow-specialized researches. Томми Нёрд (talk) 20:03, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I agree, it's not something I'd do: but I guess it's an invitation to someone to write an article about them some day. seglea (talk) 20:15, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notable ethologists without links 

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thread_title: Image copyright problem with File:Alex the Parrot.jpg

message: Alcock, John (2003): A textbook history of animal behaviour. Animal Behaviour 65: 3–10. 
Traces the history of behavioral biology, from classical ethology to sociobiology and neuroethology. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 01:33, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Good reference

message: The introduction should state a formal definition of Ethology.  I browsed to this article knowing nothing about what is ethology, and it is still unclear at the 50,000-foot level.
128.227.82.167 (talk) 14:53, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition? 

message: Taxis is one of the most important parts of ethology. It isn't mentioned once.
Geo-taxis
Chemo-taxis
Photo-taxis
Thigmo-taxis
etc.
Please rectify.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaplani99 (talk • contribs) 21:29, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taxis 

message: My interest in ethology is John Bowlby's use of it to help understand human behavior concerning infant attachment.  What degree of relationship exists between animals (especially mammals) and humans?  I ask because some Attachment theorists are considering dropping Bowlby's use of ethology from their understanding of attachment.  Margaret9mary (talk) 03:28, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification needed 

message: I see releaser goes to a page on chemical signals. As it is such an important term for ethology, I would suggest that page becomes a disambig page, with links to releaser (chemistry) and releaser (ethology). Otherwise, we could just create the latter page for ethology. It's needed. Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:31, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Releaser 

message: As an ethologist, I feel that the article on Ethology deserves its own template rather than being considered as just a sub-branch of zoology.  I have created an Ethology template (below) and I propose to replace the Zoology template with this.  Any comments are welcome. 
:Category:Biology templates
:Category:Animal templates
DrChrissy (talk) 16:21, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Replacing the Zoology template

message: Having worked in animal behaviour for over 20 years, I always thought that the definition of 'Ethology' included a component of the animal being in its natural environment. e.g.
The scientific study of animal behavior, especially as it occurs in a natural environment
The study of animal behavior with emphasis on the behavioral patterns that occur in natural environments.
The scientific and objective study of animal behavior especially under natural conditions 
 
My own behavioural work has usually involved farm, laboratory and zoo animals.  The vast majority of these animals are not in their natural environments, (although it could be argued that because some of these animals exist only under these conditions, they ARE the natural conditions).  I do not consider myself to be an ethologist but an animal behaviouralist.  I propose that the definition in Ethology be changed to be more accurate.  I would also like to propose that Animal Behaviour is listed as a seperate page rather than re-directed to Ethology.DrChrissy (talk) 16:47, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Definition of Ethology

message: Is it correct to use 'newborns' in the following sentence in the article, or should it be 'newly-hatched'?
A notable example of a releaser is the beak movements in many bird species performed by the newborns, which stimulates the mother's regurgitating process to feed her offspring.DrChrissy (talk) 18:06, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are absolutely right! Lova Falk talk 18:38, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Correct terminology

message: In the sub-section on 'Imitation' the example given is the widely reported washing of food by Japanese macaques. But, imitation is an exact replication of the behaviour performed by the demonstrating animals.  My understanding is that this is NOT the case with the macaques.  Rather, this is a good example of observational learning or emulation.  DrChrissy (talk) 18:08, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Imitation - is the example correct?

message: Should Ivan Pavlov be included on the list of ethologists?  Almost all articles I have ever read on him begin something like 'Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a famous Russian physiologist.'  I am well aware of his ground breaking research on classical conditioning and I would not wish to take away any acknowledgement of his work in animal behaviour, but was he really an 'ethologist'? DrChrissy (talk) 16:03, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I wondered the same thing, but underneath the header is the line: "People who have made notable contributions to ethology (many are comparative psychologists)" and then I decided he could be in the list. Also because he is in the WP cat. ethologists. However, it seems that the header needs to be changed. Lova Falk talk 17:22, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough.  I suspect my own use of the word 'ethology' and 'ethologist' differs quite markedly from that of many on here, but I get the feeling that raising the issue of 'naturalness of behaviour' would be a massive task that should have been discussed at the formation of the page.  Thanks for you clarification. DrChrissy (talk) 17:43, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Ivan Pavlov

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replies: text: --Iryna Harpy (talk) 20:04, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Substituted at 14:44, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

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replies: text: --Iryna Harpy (talk) 20:01, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello. I am a 4th Year Biology student at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada. After reviewing this page, it has come to my attention that there have been no editor comments from other contributors since ~2007, indicating that some updated information and citations would most likely be available. Due to the nature of this broad-type article, I think it would be helpful for contributors to delve into potential new sources so that more of the material written in this article can be cited and deemed reputable. I will be looking into this over the next few weeks, and would appreciate any feedback from other fellow Wikipedians with knowledge in this area! Cheers. -- Js7581 (talk) 15:51, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, the most recent discussion was 2012, but that's nothing to quibble over. There is certainly ample room for improvement and updating. There are editors watching the article, so please feel free to improve and expand according to reliable sources. If you have any queries, or if there are any doubts as to your content elaboration, there's always someone happy to help out. Happy editing! --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:17, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks so much  I appreciate your input! I will make sure I post in the Talk page before making any changes! Thanks again. Js7581 (talk) 00:56, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Note on Citations 

message: In the header there is at least one line addressing the fact that ethology especially deals with animals in nature and not in captivity. 
This theme deserves a topic of itself, namely where it is explained why ethology focusses on animals in their natural habitat as opposed to the more easily observable animals in captivity.
This then could possibly also provide room for a short exposition on the difficulty that ethology faces in the research of human behaviour. 
As of yet I don't have the research and sources at hand, but will try to make a proposal as I find the time, if no major objections are found. FreieFF (talk) 16:05, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section on Captivity vs. Natural state 

message: There should be separate articles for animal behaviour and ethology the way there are separate articles for history and history of the world. The Language Learner (talk) 16:06, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Animal behavior deserves an article 

message: The beginning of this article is a mess. It says that ethologists study animal behaviour in both natural and laboratory conditions, but, strictly speaking, ethology is the study of animal behaviour in natural environments. It refers to behaviourism, but behaviourism is really quite different to ethology, as that does study animals in laboratories, such as rats in Skinner boxes. YTKJ (talk) 20:34, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Beginning of this article is a mess

message: Behavior or Behaviour? Pick one throughout Wikipedia and stick with it. OMG, not even consistent in one paragraph of this article. 73.226.154.233 (talk) 07:06, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: "throughout Wikipedia" is not going to happen. MOS:ENGVAR allows different varieties of English to be used in different articles. Within any given article, the variety should be consistent. This article has been tagged since 2016 as using British English, so "behaviour" is appropriate here. Just plain Bill (talk) 10:51, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling Behavior or Behaviour. 

message: Ethology ≈ ex - e≈ environment plus five physical media, ground, atmosphere, water, organic matter and the rest, known or not - time havoc - h≈ habitats accerted vis, latin language for power in physics, observed corpus, cfr. Archimaedes and Newton - organisms symbiosis - cfr. Ethos and aethics where a≈ approved, accerted, adverted, and so on, meaning already experimented before - plus logos≈ logics, organisms, gnosis, ontology, summary. Therefore ethology is not just about animalia, zoology, but also about other organism cfr. Cavalier Smith. Sabrina.ponsi (talk) 09:42, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethology as a lemma 

message: There are an unlikely 15 micro-images in the lead image, far too many, probably, for many smaller devices (or older readers).
Leaving that aside for the moment, 9 of 15 are of mammals, and 13 of 15 are of vertebrates. There is just one insect (the honeybee) of the 15, and one millipede, making 2 arthropods. No other phyla are represented. This is a highly skewed selection from the many animal phyla; equally, given the large number of species of insect, it is an extremely skewed selection from the many animal species. Ironic that the image is "sold" on Commons as being less species-ist.
I'm actually quite unsure that a composite of such small images even "works" as a lead image. Better may be to present one or two images of something that is certainly animal behaviour. Maybe the honeybee's dance; and maybe a pair of birds displaying or fighting, something like that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:04, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: With the goals of readability on small devices, indicating the diversity of animal behaviour, and a glimpse of the taxonomic range involved, I've put up an image of the waggle dance (insects), courtship in grebes (birds), and rutting (mammals). Happy to discuss but it's certainly far closer to those three goals than what was there before. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:56, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead image is biased