Ethograms Charting animal behavior

What is an ethogram? An ethogram is a catalog of an animal’s behavioral repetoire, detailing the different forms of behavior that are displayed by an animal. In most cases, it is desirable to create an ethogram in which the categories of behavior are objective, discrete, and do not overlap with each other. Definitions should be clear, detailed and distinguishable from each other. Ethograms can be as specific or general as the study warrants. A research project dealing strictly with aggressive behavior in chimpanzees can be composed simply of the various forms of aggression displayed by that species. Alternatively, some studies seek to describe all facets of a particular animal's behavior, and the appropriate ethogram will comprehensively categorize any and all behaivors that may occur.

Step 1: Viewing Behavior Students would spend time watching their organism and writing down all the different behaviors they observe.

Adpress: One or more limbs are raised off the substrate and held against the lateral side of the body Alert: The head and forebody are raised off the substrate and the eyes are open Allogroom: One lizard GROOMS another Bask: The body is flattened onto the substrate and oriented at right angles to a heat source Bite: One lizard grasps another with its jaws Body-roll: A lizard rapidly rolls its body sideways Chase: One lizard rapidly follows another FLEEING lizard Chew: Up and down movement of jaw, mandibulation Circling: Movement of two individuals following a common circular path Cloaca-drag: Forward movement with the cloacal region in contact with the substrate Defecate: The tail is raised and the body moved forward as feces are passed Drink: The snout is placed in water and the tongue is slowly protruded and returned to the mouth Eyes-closed: The lower eyelid is brought up over the eye Face-off: Two lizards stand parallel to each other in mutual LATERAL-ORIENTATION facing different directions Flee: One lizard moves away from another CHASING lizard Flinch: Rapid backward movement of the head away from a stimulus Food-bite: A food-item is grasped with the jaws Food-shake: A food item is violently shaken by side-to- side motion of the head Gape: A wide opening of the jaws Groom: A lizard BITES its own body Gular-expansion: Expansion of the throat region Head-nod: A slow upward movement of the head followed by a rapid downward movement Head-tilt: The head is turned such that one eye faces towards a stimulus Head-touch: Two lizards touch snouts facing each other Jump: A lizard springs into the air such that all four feet leave the substrate Lateral-orientation: The sagittal plane of the lizard is made to face a stimulus by postural adjustment Leg-twitch: A lizard remains stationary whilst the hind legs are moved up and down in a jerky manner. The legs are usually alternated Lick: The tongue is brought into contact with a substrate Lie-on: A lizard lies on another such that some part of its head or body is in contact with the other lizard Lunge: Rapid jumping movement by one lizard toward another Mouth-scrape: The mouth is scraped on a hard substrate such as a rock Move: A lizard moves from one place to another Move-away: One lizard MOVES away from another Move-over: One lizard MOVES over the top of another Neck-arch: The body is raised on the front legs and the snout is pointed towards the ground Nip: One lizard grasps another with its jaws and then releases immediately (less than one second later) Nudge: A lizard MOVES so that its snout is in contact with some part of another lizard and then pushes forward Scratch: The body is bowed laterally and a hind limb is used to rapidly abrade the anterior region of the body Slough: A lizard moves so as to scrape its body against stationary objects in such a way as to remove sloughed skin Stalk: Slow approach to a stimulus

Recording Behavior Focal (or continuous) sampling: Here, the observer picks a single individual and records behaviors for a set period of time (for example, one hour). One advantage of this is that, with a timer, you can determine the amount of time spent doing specific behaviors. However, since you observe only one animal you get no sense of variation among individuals. You can overcome this problem by focal sampling multiple organisms, but this leads into the second disadvantage; focal sampling takes a fair amount of time. Scan sampling: Here, the observer scans a large number of organisms for a short period (for example, 30 sec) and records the number of individuals doing each kind of behavior. Typically, this process is repeated at regular intervals, such as once per hour, per day, etc. Here you get a sense of variation among individuals, but you are unable to assign sequences (or sets) of behaviors to individuals unless you mark them somehow.

Add up the time spent on each behavior during the time you watched your subjects. Then divide the number of minutes spent in an activity by the total number of minutes spent in all the observations to get the percent of time spent on each activity. Make a Pie Chart of the percentages of time spent in various activities so that the observer can quickly understand the interrelationships of the behavior patterns and their relative frequency in the daily routine of the subject. The percentages on the Pie Chart should add up to 100%.