Ethology

Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour considered as a branch of zoology. A scientist who practises ethology is called an ethologist.

Darwinism and the beginnings of ethology

Because ethology is understood as a branch of biology, ethologists have been particularly concerned with the evolution of behaviour and the understanding of behaviour in terms of the theory of natural selection. In one sense the first modern ethologist was Charles Darwin, whose book The expression of the emotions in animals and men influenced many ethologists. However, he pursued his interest in behaviour by encouraging his protégé George Romanes, who investigated animal learning and intelligence using an anthropormorphic method that did not gain scientific support. The early ethologists, such as Oskar Heinroth and Julian Huxley instead concentrated on behaviours that can be called instinctive, or natural, in that they occur in all members of a species under specified circumstances. Their first step in studying the behaviour of a new species was to construct an ethogram, a description of the main types of natural behaviour with their frequencies of occurrence. This approach provided an objective, cumulative base of data about behaviour, which subsequent researchers could check and build on, and as a way of building a science of behaviour, it proved much more fruitful.

Related Topics:
Biology - Evolution - Natural selection - Charles Darwin - George Romanes - Oskar Heinroth - Julian Huxley - Instinct - Species

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