Making an Ethogram and studying behavior

• Biologie
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 3

Studying behaviour

• Ethology: study of animal and human behaviour
• Behaviour contains actions (gedragselementen) : these are often interrelated and have a goal 
• Chain of behaviour
• Make an ethogram: a list of an animal's behaviour that creates an inventory of actions/movements/patterns that an animal exhibits
• Ethogram is a tool to measure behaviour to understand how an animal behaves and interacts with the environment

How do we study behaviour?

• To study behaviour, we have to quantify it (#s, data)
• Example: How often? How long? Differences
• The behaviour (action) must be objective
• The action must be repeatable

Steps to making an ethogram

1. Observe the species 
2. See which actions the animal is making
3. Write down each action objectively (ex. animal shows teeth = growl)
4. Give each action an abbreviation

Example

Action	Abbreviation	Description
Sitting	si	bottom has touched the ground
Scratching	sc	hind leg strokes fur
Rolling	ro	turns 180 degrees

Get your results

• Protocol - write down which actions you observe within a time frame
• 1st step: Name of species, where, when (time and date), length of time

Rabbit

Noorddijk 23, Piershil

rabbit cage 2X2m

7-9-2021, 10:05am

Observation time: 5 min, every 10s

Time	1	2	3	4	5
0-10sec
10-20sec
20-30sec
30-40sec
40-50sec
50-60sec

Protocol for a rabbit

Time	1	2	3	4	5
0-10sec	si	sc
10-20sec	si	sc
20-30sec	si	sc
30-40sec	sc	si
40-50sec	ro	si
50-60sec	ro	si

Videos:

1. horse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAY8ZatNTZE
2. rats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZmPINRJOVg
3. monkeys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_AL93uqIow
4. chimps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM4si1ZO4Ns
5. dog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNAwVoa1HvI

Habituation

Chemotaxis

Kinesis

Imprinting

Responding to food chemicals by moving towards the stimulus

A randomly directed movement of the organism in response to a stimulus

Animals learn not to respond to unimportant signals in the environment

The red/white pencil is a

1. Super stimulus
2. Supernormal stimulus
3. Sign stimulus
4. Sign response