everything.study
9.201

Advanced Animal Behavior

Graduate · Historical course

Spring 2000

Topics

  • Introduction. Organization, Readings, Projects. Approaches to the Study of Animals and Their Behavior.
  • Classics; Key Concepts in Ethology.
  • Key Concepts in Sociobiology.
  • Key Concepts in Learning.
  • Habitat Selection. Nest Site Selection; Territoriality; Dispersal; Migration.
  • Feeding. Foraging or Stalking; Prey Capture; Storage/Hoarding; Consummation. Tool Use. Cooperation among Conspecifics.
  • Antipredator Behavior. Detection; Tricking the Predator; Defenses – Individual, Social; Other Adaptations.
  • Sexuality. Dimorphisms in Body and Behavior; Social Organization, Dominance Structures; Evolution of Sexual Signals, Emancipation from Original Uses.
  • Mating and Reproduction. Pair Bonding Varieties and Advantages; Brood Tending and Its Evolution; Similarities of Emancipated Actions Across Widely Different Species.
  • Maintenance Functions (Other than Feeding and Predator Avoidance). Elimination; Temperature Regulation; Grooming, Cleaning of Body and Nest, and Evolution/Emancipation of these Actions for Social Uses; Reactions to Illness and Injury; Sleeping and Activity Cycles; Nesting re Other Functions, Adaptations.
  • Flies and Other Insects.
  • Rodents and Lagomorphs. Social vs. Solitary; Specialized vs. Generalized/Non-specialized.
  • Cats and Other Large Predators; Ferrets.
  • Vegetarian Foragers: Ungulates; Most Cetaceans.
  • Primates: Monkeys.
  • Primates: Apes.
  • Human Ethology.
  • Cognitive Ethology/Comparative Cognition.
  • Wild Animals in Captivity. Animals in Cages re Natural Adaptations, cf. Humans in Crowded Conditions. Animal Rights. Religious Views of Animals. Conservation Efforts that Succeed or Go Awry.
  • Behavioral Pharmacology and Toxicology. Behavioral Pathologies in Laboratory and in the Wild.
  • Project Reports.

Readings

  • Alcock, J. Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary Approach. 5th ed. Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer Assoc., 1993.
    Listed reading
  • Barash, D. P. Sociobiology and Behavior. 2nd ed. N.Y.: Elsevier, 1982.
    Listed reading
  • Brown, L., and J. F. Downhower. Analyses in Behavioral Ecology: A Manual for Lab and Field . Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer Assoc., 1988.
    Listed reading
  • Cockburn, A. An Introduction to Evolutionary Ecology . Oxford: Blackwell Science, Ltd., 1991.
    Listed reading
  • Darwin, C. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals . Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press; Phoenix Books, 1965. (Orig. 1872)
    Listed reading
  • Dewsbury, D. A., ed. Contemporary Issues in Comparative Psychology . Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer Assoc., 1989.
    Listed reading
  • Drickamer, L. C., S. H. Vessey, and D. Meikle. Animal Behavior: Mechanisms, Ecology and Evolution. 3rd ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, 1996.
    Listed reading
  • Gallistel, C. R. The Organization of Learning . Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press (Bradford Book), 1990.
    Listed reading
  • ———. The Organization of Action: A New Synthesis . Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1980.
    Listed reading
  • ———, ed. Animal Cognition . Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992. (From Cognition. Vol. 37, no. 1-2. 1990.)
    Listed reading
  • Griffin, D. R. Animal Thinking . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1984.
    Listed reading
  • Hediger, H. Wild Animals in Captivity . N.Y.: Dover, 1964.
    Listed reading
  • ———. Man and Animal in the Zoo. Translated by G. Vevers and W. Reade. N.Y.: Delacorte Press, 1969.
    Listed reading
  • Krebs, J. R., and N. B. Davies, eds. Behavioural Ecology, An Evolutionary Approach. 4th ed. Oxford: Blackwell Science, Ltd., 1997.
    Listed reading
  • Lorenz, K. Z. The Foundations of Ethology . N.Y.: Springer, 1981.
    Listed reading
  • Maxwell, M., ed. The Sociobiological Imagination . Albany: SUNY Press, 1991.
    Listed reading
  • Ristau, C. A., and P. Marler, eds. Cognitive Ethology: The Minds of Other Animals . Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990.
    Listed reading
  • Roitblat, H. L. Introduction to Comparative Cognition. N.Y.: W.H. Freeman & Co., 1987.
    Listed reading
  • Wickler, W. The Sexual Code: The Social Behavior of Animals and Men. Translated by F. Garvie. Garden City: Doubleday; Anchor Press, 1973.
    Listed reading
  • Wilson, E. O. Sociobiology, the Abridged Edition . Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1980.
    Listed reading
  • Advances in the Study of Behavior. Vol. 1-18. N.Y.: Academic Press, 1965-1988.
    Listed reading
  • Barnett, S. A. The Rat: A Study in Behavior . Chicago: Aldine, 1963.
    Listed reading
  • Byrne, R. W., and A. Whiten. Machiavellian Intelligence: Social Expertise and the Evolution of Intellect in Monkeys, Apes, and Humans. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.
    Listed reading
  • Calhoun, J. B. The Ecology and Sociology of the Norway Rat . Public Health Service Publication No. 1008. U.S.Government Printing Office, 1962.
    Listed reading
  • Cheney, D. L., and R. M. Seyfarth. How Monkeys See the World: Inside the Mind of Another Species. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1990.
    Listed reading
  • Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. Human Ethology . N.Y.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1989.
    Listed reading
  • Fossey, D. Gorillas in the Mist . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983.
    Listed reading
  • Goodall, J. The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1986.
    Listed reading
  • Hrdy, S. B. The Langurs of Abu: Female and Male Strategies of Reproduction. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1977.
    Listed reading
  • Konner, M. The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit . N.Y.: Harper & Row (Harper Colophon Books), 1982, 1990.
    Listed reading
  • Leyhausen, P. Cat Behavior: The Predatory and Social Behavior of Domestic and Wild Cats. N.Y.: Garland St P M Press, 1979. [English version of his Verhaltenstudien on Katzen. ]
    Listed reading
  • Lockley, R. M. The Private Life of the Rabbit . N.Y.: Macmillan, 1964.
    Listed reading
  • Ryden, H. Lily Pond: Four Years with a Family of Beavers. N.Y.: Wm. Morrow and Co., 1989.
    Listed reading
  • Siegel, H. I., ed. The Hamster: Reproduction and Behavior. N.Y.: Plenum Press, 1985.
    Listed reading
  • Strum, S. C. Almost Human: A Journey into the World of Baboons . New York: W.W. Norton, 1987.
    Listed reading
  • Wrangham, R. W., W. C. McGrew, F. B. M. de Waal, and P. G. Heltne, eds. Chimpanzee Cultures . Harvard Univ. Press, 1994.
    Listed reading
  • Readings, e.g., Sherman, P. W., and J. Alcock, eds. “Exploring Animal Behavior.” Readings from American Scientist. 1993.
    Listed reading
  • Assignment for next session: Selections from K. Lorenz, The Foundations of Ethology , pp. 1-12, 28-32, 46-64, (72-89), 89-93, (93-99), 100-103, 107-152. Cf. his stories (extra credit): King Solomon’s Ring, The Year of the Greylag Goose . Cf. N. Tinbergen’s Curious Naturalists .
    Listed reading
Sources