Ethology is the study of animal behavior.  Based on the information that we collect, scientists can create ethograms to show how animals behave. Behaviors relate to how animals satisfy the need for food, to escape from predators or how they interact with other members of their species. Such knowledge is essential if we wish to keep non-human animals from extinction.

It is your responsibility to observe captive animal behavior via the internet for 10 minutes. You can visit one of these websites for live cameras, or you can google 'live cams" to find other locations to fulfill this assignment.

http://explore.org/live-cams/player/brown-bear-salmon-cam-brooks-falls (Links to an external site.)    https://nationalzoo.si.edu/webcams (Links to an external site.)

There are many animal "cams" online 24/7. Find a species of interest to you. (It does not have to be a primate.)

Assignment:

Watch the behavior of ONE (focal) animal for a total of ten (10) minutes. Each minute, record the behavior being displayed. Then create an ethogram to demonstrate your results. This may look like a pie chart or like a histogram.

The focal animal sampling method means that you are recording the animal's behavior for a  specified (10 minutes) time period. You are not recording the behaviors of the other animals in the group and you are recording behaviors at exact intervals. At each interval, one minute, you will record what you see that one animal doing.

Next, discuss your sampling method and write a summary of your results.  Answer the following questions:

1. Would the results differ for captive versus animal populations?

2. Would the results differ depending upon the time of day and/or  weather conditions of the observation?

3. Is this a legitimate representation of the animal's behavior and why?

This paper is to be a minimum of 1 page in length. I recommend outside research in order to successfully complete the final questions.