Behaviors are a significant tool in a animals life. These behaviors can be obtained naturally or learned through time. Behaviors are imperative, so a animal can survive, and have enough instincts to adapt to their surroundings.
There are two types of behavior classifications. Learned behavior, and Innate Behavior.
Innate Behaviors (Instinct) is where an animals appear fully functional the first time they are preformed, even they the animal may have had no prior experience with the stimulus it responds too. (A kitten nursing, is a instinct kittens are born with.) Learned behaviors (Acquired Behavior) is where a instinct is learned through repetitive exposure to an experience or stimulus. There are four different types of Learned Behaviors: 🔅Habituation 🔅Classical Conditioning 🔅Operant Conditioning 🔅Insight Conditioning
Courtship: Courtship is the behavior in which animals have seasonal, or eventually mating, to pass down their genes. Courtship could be visual, auditory stimuli, or a complex series of acts. Ex: Penguins that collect rocks to attract mates. Gypsy Moths release pheromones (odorous substances) to attract mates.
Animals learn to behave in certain ways through repeated practice or experience. Ex: A frog being fed bees and dragon flies. Cats and Puzzle Boxes- Edward Thorndike Experiment.
Insight learning is when an animal is given a scenario not based on trial and error, but yet on cognitive thinking. Using common sense to solve a problem, instead of a stimulus. Ex: OctopusVsJars Mather's Experiment, ChimpVSFruit Wolfgang Kohlers Experiment.
Imprinting is where at the youngest stage of a young animals brain development, attach themselves with a strong social and emotional bond with the first moving thing they come in contact with. (This most commonly occurs in the Aves classification.)
Ex: Lorenzo's Greylag Geese Experiment, 19th century Darwin Spalding- Domestic Chickens
Ex: Humpback Whale with the record of longest Jamal migration at 8,500 km, each way. Monarch Butterfly with the longest insect migration of 4,750 km each Autumn.
This form of learning behavior starts with a innate behavior, but this behavior can be triggered by a stimuli- which the brain has learned to connect the two, which causes the reflex.
Ex: A dog standing on his hind legs when an owner presents treats. Pavlov's Dog Experiment.
Dominance hierarchy, a form of animal social structure in which a linear or nearly linear ranking exists, with each animal dominant over those below it and submissive to those above it in the hierarchy.