Introduction

• Ethology: branch of zoology that studies the behavior of non-human animals
• Applied Ethology: Study of animal behavior in environments that we have created
• Animal behavior is the study of how animals interact with each other, with other living beings, and with their physical environment.
• It includes all the ways animals respond to internal and external stimuli, such as hunger, predators, social interactions, climate, or human management.

Animal behaviour can be understood through two key perspectives:

a. Proximate causes: the immediate mechanisms (physiological, neurological, hormonal) that trigger a behaviour.

b. Ultimate causes: the evolutionary reasons why a behaviour developed (e.g., survival, reproduction, adaptation).