1. Observational Learning
The individual learns from others. Social learning may occur by watching the behaviour of another, but it may also occur by simpler means.

2. Observational learning in Japanese macaques
The habit of washing sweet potatoes in the sea started with a young Japanese macaque female. It spread rapidly to other members of the troop.

3. Lecture 7. Foraging and Migration

4. Optimal Foraging
An optimality model for a hypothetical behaviour. According to optimality theory an optimal alternative evolves that maximizes the difference between the cost and benefit and, thus, maximizes fitness.

5. Handling of food by American crows
English walnuts break easily, black walnuts do not
Walnuts crack more easily on hard surfaces
Walnuts are increasingly likely to crack with each successive drop
Crows feed in large flocks

6. Proximate explanation: it makes them taste better
Ultimate explanation: adding spices to food inhibits
the growth of microorganisms and thus protects us from disease.

10. The migratory route of the arctic tern (Sterna paradisea)

11. Costs of migration Energy expenditure
Risk of exposure to severe weather
Predation
Competition for territories

12. Advantages of migration
Greater food supply
Special conditions for breeding
Reduction in parasitism
Reduction in competition
for resources

13. Migratory routes of green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas)

14. Navigation
Processes that enable an animal to find its way from one specific place to another
Piloting
Compass orientation
‘True’ navigation

15. Piloting
The ability to find a goal by referring to familiar landmarks

16. Compass orientation
The ability to head in a geographical direction without the use of landmarks.

17. Experimental relocation of an animal that is using compass orientation
causes it to miss the goal by the amount of its displacement

18. Compass orientation in the European starling

19. Navigation in the desert ant (Catahlyphis bicolor)

20. Navigation by dead reckoning
The animal determines its position by using the direction and
distance of each successive leg of the outward trip.
A compass can then be used to steer a course directly toward home.

21. “True” navigation
Reference to a goal is established regardless of its location without the use of landmarks

22. An animal that finds its way by using true navigation can compensate
for experimental relocation and travel toward the goal. This implies
that the animal cannot directly sense its goal and that it is not using
familiar landmarks to direct its journey.

23. A famous homing pigeon
Two hundred fifty American soldiers in World War I owed their lives
to this homing pigeon, which carried a distress message to its handler.
Reinforcements were sent to rescue the beleaguered battalion.

24. Gustav Kramer’s sun-compass orientation experiment
Birds use the sun as a navigational cue
Using mirrors, Kramer altered the apparent position
of the sun. The birds shifted their migratory direction
by the same angle
Birds compensate for the sun’s
apparent motion
Caged starlings alter the direction of their attempted
migratory movement with respect to the artificial sun,
as if assuming that the ‘sun’ is moving.

25. Stars as visual cues in navigation
The stars rotate around Polaris, the North Star. The center of rotation of the stars
tells birds which way is north. The positions of stars in the northern sky during
the spring are shown here. The closed circles indicate star positions during
the early evening, and the open circles indicate the positions of the same stars
six hours later.