- A Century of Generalization - This article aims to organise existing data to test the theory that, when a behavior has been established in response to a certain stimulus, novel stimuli resembling the first will usually elicit the same response. [PDF]
- A Reproductive Dictatorship : Naked Mole-rats - The eusocial naked mole-rat is the mammalian equivalent of a social insect. This article discusses how and why the dominant queen and the infertile workers cooperate for the benefit of the whole colony.
- About Gender: Ethology - An introduction to animal reproduction, maternal strategies, living in groups, dominance and male behavior. The rest of the site deals with human gender roles, variance and identity.
- Adaptation - Mark A McPeek outlines his research on how damselflies evade their predators, in particular the trade off they make between foraging rate and predation risk.
- Alina Simona Rusu - Researcher whose publications include coping strategies in mice, chemical communication in mammals and cognitive ethology.
- Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs - Describes the wolf-pack social order as it occurs in nature, discusses the alpha concept and social dominance and submission, and presents data on the precise relationships among members in free-living packs.
- Animal Behavior - A free online textbook from Wikibooks.
- Animal Behavior and Sociobiology - Lecture on sociobiological behavior based on experimental animal observation from McMaster University, Canada.
- Animal Behavior, Behavioral Ecology and Arachnology - Dr George Uetz at the University of Illinois is leading research into colonial web-building spiders, communication in wolf spiders and other aspects of arachnid behavior.
- Animal Behavior Lab - Overview of current research at Macquarie University, Australia, with detailed material on each project.
- Animal Behavior/Sensory Biology - Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks - Article from Wikibooks explaining that, by learning how the senses gather information, a better understanding of behavior is gained.
- Animal Behaviour - Birmingham University’s introduction to animal behavior for biology students. Covers a wide range of topics with references for further study and a quiz to test understanding.
- Animal Behaviour - Daniel Mills and Gill Sheppard describe an evolutionary approach to the analysis, assessment and treatment of behavior problems.
- Animal Behaviour and Welfare Science Research Group. - The University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada examines how an understanding of the behavior of domesticated animals and poultry can contribute to their welfare.
- Animal Behaviour Research Unit - Established in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania, ABRU undertakes long term research into yellow baboons and now also studies the African Elephant.
- Animal Cognition - Researchers at Edinburgh University are using both evolutionary and behavioral approaches to try to understand the factors that shape animal cognitive abilities.
- Animal Cognition Network - Provides links to current scientific literature in the field of animal cognition. Includes journal articles, reviews, books and relevant websites.
- Animal Navigation Group - Provides an e-mail animal forum and disseminates news on animal navigation, orientation and migration through its newsletter and conferences.
- Antipredator Adaptations: Crypsis - Notes, with photographs, on the four cryptic strategies employed by animals to blend in with their background and avoid detection.
- Archives of Ethology - Archives of an inactive internet discussion group on animal behavior that span an eight year period.
- Article: Bee Behavior - By studying bees as individuals and as a colony, Stephen Taber researches how their behavior may be changed to our benefit. The site also provides a sourcebook for beekeeping.
- Avian Visual Cognition - This multimedia cyberbook provides a comprehensive survey of this area of comparative research with chapters by top international scientists.
- Baboon and Impala Together - Discusses how baboons and impala interact. Offers scientific observations and images.
- Bear Center Conducts Hibernation Study - Article by Lynne L Rogers who has studied black bear behavior and ecology in northeastern Minnesota since 1969.
- Bee Behavior - A project studying the behavior of bees as individuals and as a colony, including a live feed from a hive.
- Behavioral Ecology Research Group - Research on the evolution of social systems and social learning at the University of Queensland, Australia.
- Behaviour: A Journey to the Bottom of the World - Penguins can demonstrate complex behavioral patterns including general, aggressive and sexual behaviors.
- Behavioural and Cognitive Influences of Kairomones on an Araneophagic Jumping Spider - Jackson, Clark and Harland researched the factors influencing the predatory habits of the jumping spider, Portia fimbriata, which eats other spiders. [PDF]
- Bird Behavior - Bird Behavior is an international and interdisciplinary journal that publishes research on avian behavior, including the areas of ethology, behavioral ecology, comparative psychology, and behavioral neuroscience.
- Braun Lab of Hydroacoustic Research and Discovery - Current research at Hunter College, New York, concentrates on the multiple sensory systems that fish use to detect moving and sound-producing objects, including the gymnotiform fishes that use electricity to communicate.
- Brood Parasitism - This essay describes the behavior of birds that lay their eggs in the nest of another species, with links to other essays covering similar topics.
- Causes and Consequences of a Lack of Coevolution in Mullerian Mimicry - Article by James Mallet in which he discusses whether the unpalatable species that copy one another for their mutual benefit evolved together. [PDF]
- Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior - Information from Indiana University's program on animal behavior.
- Centre for Neuroscience and Animal Behaviour - Research into brain function and behavior, communication and higher cognition in animals as undertaken at the University of New England, Australia.
- Chelonian Research Foundation - This foundation supports worldwide turtle and tortoise research and produces a journal – Chelian Conservation and Biology.
- Chimpanzee Cultures - A searchable database of chimpanzee cultural behaviors.
- Cognitive Architecture of a Mini-brain: The Honeybee - Article by Randolf Menzel and Martin Giurfa examining the extent to which adaptive behaviour in honeybees exceeds elementary forms of learning, and identifying the neural mechanisms involved. [PDF]
- Cognitive Ecology: A Field of Substance? - Article arguing that a greater insight into behaviors such as animal orientation, song learning, mate choice and foraging is achieved by tackling the subject from more than one starting point. [PDF]
- Cognitive Ethology and the Explanation of Nonhuman Animal Behavior - In this paper, Marc Bekoff attempts to demonstrate the importance of cognitive ethological investigations for advancing the understanding of animal cognition.
- Compass Education and Training - Offers home study courses in animal behavior at intermediate and advanced level, and equine, feline, canine, reptile and parrot behavior and psychology studies.
- Consciousness in Animals and People with Autism - Temple Grandin discusses his views on animal consciousness, using comparisons from his experience with autism, citing scientific evidence on other neurological disorders which affect consciousness.
- Cooperative Breeding - Communal breeding occurs when more than two birds of the same species provide care in rearing the young from one nest.
- Cooperative Breeding in Birds: a Comparative Test of the Life History Hypothesis - Kathryn Arnold and Ian Owens test the hypothesis that cooperative breeding tends to occur in species with low annual mortality because this leads to overcrowded populations. [PDF]
- Cophylogeny between Pocket Gophers and Chewing Lice - Article discussing the symbiotic association between gophers and chewing lice, creatures whose life histories are conducive to parallel speciation. [PDF]
- Cospeciation and Rates of Evolution in Lice and Birds: a Molecular Approach - How old is the association between a given parasite and its host? Rod Page at the University of Glasgow tries to answer this question.
- Deep-sea Octocorals as Homes for Other Species - Researchers at the Darling Marine Center at the University of Maine, examine the commensal relationships of octocorals with brittle stars and marine scale worms.
- Describing Social Insect Behaviour Using Process Algebra - Chris Tofts at University College Swansea, Wales, presents robust algorithms that describe three different ant behaviours: synchrony, task allocation and sorting [PDF]
- Dolphin Institute - Dedicated to conservation of and education about dolphins and whales. Research projects include dolphin echolocation.
- Dominance in Crayfish. - Article from the Journal of Neuroscience on patterns of behavior, including the activation of neural circuits, during the formation of a dominance hierarchy in crayfish.
- Dominance in Domestic Hen Triads - The role of individual differences and patterns of resolution in the formation of dominance orders in domestic hen triads.
- EcoBirds: Anting - Article discussing the strange behavior adopted by some birds in using ants in preening or in some instances, lying down among ants.
- Elephant Corner: Mentality, Cognition and Behavior of Elephants - Moti Nissani details his research into elephant behavior, cognition and senses, with sounds and video clips.
- Encyclopedia of Psychology - Animal Behavior - Annotated links to resources on animal behavior and instincts.
- Essay: A Baboon’s Life - An essay written by Robert Sapolsky in 1996 on violence between male baboons, aging and friendship.
- Ethology - Tables of contents, contacts and subscription information from this journal by Blackwell Publishing.
- Fauna Communications Research - Institute that researches bioacoustics and animal communication, especially of endangered species.
- Feral Cats - Information on a study of feral cats in Portsmouth Naval Dockyard, United Kingdom, conducted by Jane Dards in the 1970s.
- Figs and Fig wasps - An example of mutualism, fig wasps only live for a few days but manage to perform their amazing task of finding and pollinating the flowers that are hidden deep inside the fig.
- Fish Behaviour - Research at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, aims to study aggressive behavior in fish and relate this to the aggressor’s position in the group hierarchy. Includes video clips.
- Group Mobbing Behaviour and Nest Defence - Outlines research carried out by Katheryn E Arnold using co-operative breeding Noisy Miners (Manorina melanocephala) in Australia on whether mobbing behavior assisted reproductive success. [PDF]
- Group Predation of Lions - An investigation into the visual cues required to coordinate the complex cooperative behavior involved in hunting. [PDF]
- Historical Information about Animal Cognition - A brief survey of important scientists in the history of the study of animal behavior.
- Honey Bee Research at the University of Illinois - Research in Gene E. Robinson's lab that studies the mechanisms of social behavior in honey bees.
- How Locusts Decide it is Time to Swarm - Article from the New Scientist discussing the factors that turn a relatively harmless cloud of insects into a devastating plague.
- Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery: Animal Architecture - Dr Michael Hansell has built up an extensive collection of animal artefacts, mainly bird and insect nests but also other fascinating items.
- Journal of Insect Behavior - With six editions a year, this journal covers a wide range of behavioral research.
- Kohler’s Research on the Mentality of Apes - Excerpt from a book by Gould and Gould discussing the tests that Kohler set the chimpanzees he was marooned with during the First World War.
- Konrad Lorenz Institute for Ethology - Austrian organization that investigates major unsolved problems in behavioral and evolutionary ecology.
- Laboratory of Animal Ecology, Rikkyo University - Current research includes the ecological and evolutionary basis for animal behavior, avian behavioral ecology, and what behaviors help an animal to adapt to its environment.
- Mammal Research at JCU - Researchers at James Cook University are studying the life histories of several endangered Australian marsupials.
- Mammalian Hibernation - Article by Ken Muldrew on mammalian hibernation, sleep and torpor.
- Movie Archives of Animal Behavior - An online animal behavior video database available in various formats. Most clips filmed in Japan.
- Multiple Sexual Ornaments in Satin Bowerbirds - Article by Stephanie Doucet and Robert Montgomerie on their research into the interrelationship between bower features, plumage coloration, and indicators of male quality in this species.
- Nature-Wildlife - Besides photographing African wildlife, Spook Skelton provides notes on African mammals and their behaviour, gleaned from reading and direct observation.
- Nests and Nest-Building in Birds - Outlines a study of the Red Bishop, a colony breeding weaverbird from sub-Saharan Africa, and examines aspects of male nest-building behavior and resulting male reproductive success. [PDF]
- Oklahoma University Behavioral Neuroscience - Research in the OU Zoology Department addresses major biological questions through studies of molecules, cells, organisms, and ecosystems to uncover mechanisms of physiology, development, behavior, and evolution.
- Ontologies for Ethology - Peter E. Midford's research in coding animal behavior descriptions, particularly ethograms using ontology.
- Overview of Our Research on the Variable Field Cricket - At the Wagner Laboratory at the University of Nebraska, research is being undertaken on the evolution of male singing behavior and female song preferences in the variable field cricket
- Partnership in Birds - Article discussing monogamous birds and those that change partner, and why such divorces occur. [PDF]
- Pelican Lagoon Research Centre - This centre in Australia provides habitats for long term field studies, especially on monotremes, free from the impact of introduced species.
- Phenology - Animal activity and growth responses to seasonal climatic changes. Discussion of phenology data on animal cycles of life.
- Play Signals as Punctuation: The Structure of Social Play in Canids - Paper by Marc Bekoff discussing the use by animals of specific signals primarily to initiate or maintain social play.
- Processing Towards Life - L Charles Birch discusses self-organisation as exampled by termites, ants and slime moulds, where patterns of behavior are determined, not by some centralised authority, but by local interactions about decentralised components
- Reading: Manning and Dawkins, Animal Behavior - Notes on Chapters 2 to 7 of this book covering aspects of communication, learning, memory, evolution and social organisation.
- ReefQuest - A comprehensive source of information on the biology of sharks and rays including behavioral studies.
- Research Centre for Behavioural and Physiological Ecology (BPERC) - BPERC aims to investigate behavioral and physiological adaptations of native Australian mammals and birds living in various habitats and the impact of environmental change on them.
- Research Projects in the Mammal Research Unit - Details of the current research projects being undertaken at the Mammal Research Unit at Bristol University, England.
- Research Station Petite Camargue Alsacienne - Affiliated with the University of Basel, Switzerland. Focuses on the behavioral ecology of passerines.
- Robot Modelling of Insect Proto-Cognition - D J Smith’s thesis concerns a bio-robotic investigation of the elementary forms of cognition that might be present in small brains, specifically insect brains. [PDF]
- Sexual Selection in Bowerbirds - Research at the Borgia Lab concentrates on understanding the evolution of the complex sexual male displays in the Satin Bowerbird, Ptilonorhynchus violaceus.
- Slagsvold Group - A research group at the University of Oslo, Norway. Primary focus is on the study of sexual imprinting in small passerines.
- Social Behaviour of African Wild Dogs - Katherine Green at the University of Sheffield, England, examines how the social behavior of the African wild dog is contributing to its high risk of extinction. [PDF]
- Tamás Székely - Researcher at Bath University, England aiming to understand how animals solve the challenges imposed by their environment, mainly using bird populations
- The Arts of Deception - Mimicry and Camouflage - Article by Rhett Butler on camouflage as used by animals and the three forms of mimicry utilized by both predator and prey.
- The Centre for Avian Cognition - Research at the University of Nebraska covering a broad range of behavioral and cognitive studies on birds, each combining psychological and biological perspectives.
- The Dwarf Mongoose: Social Cooperation - Article discussing the benefit for dwarf mongooses of living in a cohesive group. Also describes their symbiotic cooperation with hornbills in Kenya.
- The European Union for Bird Ringing - EURING coordinates bird ringing throughout Europe and promotes research needed to inform the conservation and scientific understanding of wild birds.
- The Evolution of Imperfect Mimicry in Hoverflies - Article by Francis Gilbert describing Batesian mimicry and discussing the extent to which hoverflies succeed in mimicing bees, wasps and bumblebees. [PDF]
- The Gordon Lab - A long-term study of ant colony behavior, organization and ecology undertaken by Deborah Gordon and her colleagues at Stanford University.
- The Nest Building Behaviour of Higher Apes - Noel Egenter outlines his research into the ability of apes to weave branches into a stable construction and whether this requires a definite learning process.
- The Peripheral Auditory Characteristics of Noctuid Moths - Research by Dean Waters into the auditory systems sensitive to ultrasound possessed by these moths and their ability to recognise and respond to the echolocation sounds emitted by bats. [PDF]
- The Pherobase - A searchable database of insect pheromones and semiochemicals, now covering over 7000 species of insect.
- The Ryan Lab - Situated at the University of Texas, this lab is addressing questions concerning the evolution and function of animal behavior. Most of the work centers on frogs and fish.
- Theory of Mind in Nonhuman Primates - C M Heyes revisits the question asked by Premack and Woodruff, "Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?" This question dominates the study of both social behavior in nonhuman primates and cognitive development in children.
- Torpor in Hummingbirds - Article by Devorah Bennu on the strategy used by hummingbirds to conserve energy in order to survive long cold nights.
- Trade-offs Between Extraterritorial Prospecting and Helping in a Cooperative Mammal - Researchers at Cambridge University investigated whether male meerkats trade off their cooperative contributions to pup feeding against searching for mating and dispersal opportunities. [PDF]
- Universal Parasitism and the Co-evolution of Extended Phenotypes - Article by Richard Dawkins argues that we should ask “Which animal is benefiting from this behavior?” rather than asking “In what way is this animal benefiting from this behavior?” Parasites are used to illustrate this thesis.
- University of Los Andes Frog Research - Group working on frog behavior and ecophysiology at Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia.
- Untangling the Tangle-Web: Web Construction Behavior of the Comb-Footed Spider - Suresh Benjamin and Samuel Zschokke observed the behavior involved in the construction of a three dimensional, irregular web. [PDF]
- Variation in Lekking Costs in Blackbuck - Researchers at the Wildlife Institute of India examine the hypothesis that among lekking males of the species Antilope cervicapra, variations in lekking costs is related to differences in mating benefits. [PDF]
- Warning Colour and Mimicry - Mimicry is a great example of evolution by natural selection. Outline of a lecture on the subject from the Evolutionary Genetics course at University College, London.
- Web Building Behaviour in Araneus diadematus - Thomas Hasselberg’s thesis examines web building behavior in this spider, and the effects of temperature and neurotoxins on the geometry of the web and the catching of prey. [PDF]
- Whiting Lab - Research conducted at Wits University in South Africa that focuses on the behavior and evolutionary ecology of lizards and cichlids.
- Wolf and Wildlife Studies - Discusses ongoing field research concerning the behavioral habits of the Fishtrap wolf pack in northwest Montana.
- Wolf Behavior - Dedicated to the general public education of the behavioral habits of the wolf. Includes data on reproduction and diet.
Media publications
- NPR: Animal Thought and Communication - Ira Flatow and guests look at thought and communication in apes, gorillas and monkeys [Real Audio broadcast]. (Published 2004.01.16)
