Chapter 3 Questions

1) What is the immediate cause of a fixed action pattern?
Answer: A stimulus and a response.

2) The researchers who studied flying squirrels found that the squirrels that were kept in complete darkness
Answer: B maintained identical rhythms to the control squirrels.

3) Ants removed dead ants from the anthill. If a live ant is painted with a chemical of a dead ant, other ants carry it out of the anthill even as it kicks and struggles. When the ant returns to the anthill, they carry it out again. Which of the following best describes this behavior?
Answer: A the chemical triggers a fixed action pattern.

4) Your brain ignores the constant sensations of touch from your clothing because of
Answer: B habituation.

5) Swimming in a large school protects certain fish from predators, which may see the school as a single large fish. The schooling behavior is most likely an example of
Answer: D cooperation.

6) Compare and contrast immediate and ultimate causes of behavior. Give an example of each.
Answer: the immediate causes of behavior answer the ‘how’ questions, an example are how can penguins distinguish their young from other penguins? The Ultimate causes of behavior answers the ‘why’ questions, an example is why do birds migrate south for the winter?

7) Compare and contrast innate and learned behavior.
Answer: innate behavior is an act in which the certain species performs even when they are not taught, it is natural. However, the learned behavior is something the animal has to learn through experience and trials, it is self taught.

8) Describe one hypothesis that explains how habituation benefits animals.
Answer: The animal is able to focus on important stimulus, such as finding food, a potential mate and becoming aware of predators. The lesser stimulus, have no important benefit as the vital ones and therefore should not be focused on for the animals survival.

9) What is a fixed action? Describe an example of a fixed action pattern exhibited by the graylag goose.
Answer: A fixed action pattern is an innate behavior that occurs as an unchangeable sequence of actions. The graylag goose completes a certain action even after the object it is working with is removed: it will complete the deed no matter what happens.

10) Describe two hypotheses about play behavior.
Answer: It is said to help animals practice pouncing and other behaviors to help them survivor in the wild. The other hypothesis is that it gives the animal exercise. That it will help develop muscle and reflexes and put such systems in prime condition.

11) What are courtship rituals? Discuss how these rituals may benefit animals?
Answer: A courtship ritual is when animals perform behaviors before mating. The female would pick the strongest, better looking male to mate with. Doing this insures a healthier group of off spring to survive in the wild and reproduce just as healthy children. This insures an increase in the animal’s population.

12) What is one hypothesis that could explain how a dominance hierarchy benefits the animals in a social group?
Answer: My hypothesis is that with a ranking order each animal would know their place. They would eat when it is their turn, concentrate on keeping the group tighter, and raising young, practicing behaviors and follow the leader instead of breaking up into different groups which could lead to disaster.

15) Analyzing diagrams.
Answer A: From the new location the experienced birds still flew to the wintering grounds even with a new route. The inexperienced juvenile birds, also taking the same new route as the experienced birds, flew in the opposite direction, away from the wintering grounds.
Answer B: No, it does not prove the hypothesis. With the innate behavior the birds were of the same species, however even after the first time the juvenile birds still migrated to a different point, showing that they did not perform it properly before or after. The learned behavior is something that can be gained, but might take some time, the graph show the experienced birds, meaning they migrated more than twice, that even from a different point of origin the birds still fly to the wintering grounds. However, the inexperienced juvenile birds did not. Thus proving that they might need more migrations before learning the concept.