Fossey studied mountain Gorillas in Africa between
1967 and 1985
Fossey, like Goodall, spent time with the Gorillas in
their natural habitat- she watched the animals to see
how they behaved and recorded what they saw
Gorillas are social animals (animals that live in groups)
and that is what Fossey saw
E.g. The Gorillas worked together to find food, groomed
each other and warned the others of potential predators
Jane Goodall
Studied social behaviour in apes.
Goodall studied
chimpanzees in Tanzania
between 1960 and 2005
Goodall, like Fossey, spent
time with the chimpanzees in
their natural habitat- she
watched the animals to see
how they behaved and
recorded what they saw
Chimpanzees are social animals
(animals that live in groups) and
that is what Goodall saw
E.g. The chimpanzees worked together to find food, groomed each other and warned the
others of potential predators
Konrad Lorenz
Studied
imprinting in
goose chicks.
Looked at how baby birds like
ducklings recognise their mother
and learn to follow her around
He took 2 groups of eggs: 1 group
was hatched by their own mother,
the other was hatched in an
incubator
The first moving object that the geese saw,
would be their mother, that's why they
would follow her around. This is what
happened to the first group of eggs
The first moving object that group 2 saw was
Lorenz. The ducklings thought that he was their
mother and followed him around- this is
imprinting.
Nikolaas Tinbergen
Studied innate
behaviour in gulls.
Newly hatched gull chicks
know how to peck at their
parent's beak to ask for
food.
Tinbergen showed the chicks different coloured spots on
a cardboard gull to see if the chicks pecked at it
Gulls have a red spot on the beak
The majority of the chicks pecked at the red spot on the gull
Ethology
Ethology is the study of animal
behaviour. Experiments are
usually taken under the
animal's natural habitat.
A person who studies animal behaviour is called an ethologist