Ethology, << ih THOL uh jee, >> is the branch of zoology that deals with animal instincts. Ethologists study such instinctive behavior as courtship, mating, and care of young. They also study how animals communicate and how they establish and defend their territories.
Ethologists seek to determine what causes instinctive behavior, how such behavior developed over millions of years, and how it helps a species survive. For each kind of animal studied, ethologists prepare an ethogram, which is a list that describes the known behavior patterns of the species. In the ethogram, they also try to specify the conditions under which each instinctive act occurs. Ethologists have developed ethograms for various species of insects, fishes, birds, and mammals.
