Behaviour ReportEquipment Required:

Pet or online stream of animal (See links) to observe

Pen or Pencil

Optional:

Video recording device (Smartphone, tablet, GoPro)

Computer with Excel (available through HWB)

Time Required:

About 1.5 hours for basic investigation

Introduction:

Working at home, like us, you might have started to watch your

pets, animals in your garden or even your own family more

closely!

Animal behaviour is fascinating (yes - we still count as animals),

but decoding what your dog, guinea pig or even your younger

brother or sister is actually doing can be tricky. To do this we

need to use our science skills of observation and recording.

Charles Darwin

Jenny – The Orangutan Darwin

studied in London Zoo

Ethology the study of

animal behaviourThe study of animal behaviour is called

ethology. Scientists like Charles Darwin

started looking at animal behaviour in

the 1830’s.

He was fascinated by an Orangutan,

Jenny, in London zoo. He compared her

behaviour to that of his children. He was

mocked in the press for comparing

humans to apes.

In the 1930’s Nikolaas Tinbergen, Konrad Lorenz and Karl von

Frisch recorded the behaviour of seagulls. This new science

was called ethology and won them the 1973 Nobel prize for

physiology and medicine for their work.

Jane Goodall is one of the most famous ethologists to study

apes. Her work on chimpanzees from the 1960 is world

famous. https://janegoodall.ca/our-stories/chimpanzee-

behaviour/

Niko Tinbergen (Left) and Konrad LorenzJane Goodall

Identifying your pet’s behaviour

In the following experiment you will follow in the footsteps of

ethologists. You will use their techniques to study the

behaviour of pets or animals online.

To help you think about animal behaviour have a look at the

videos in the links below. If you don’t have any pets you could

use the final two videos in your study:

Behaviour videos -

Cats Video 1

Cats Video 2

Dogs Video 1

Dogs Video 2

Guinea Pigs Video

No pets? Try using these videos and webcams to get

data for your ethogram:

Monkeys

Horses

Zoo Webcam links:

Edinburgh Zoo

Smithsonian Museum, Washington D.C.

Folly Farm, Pembrokeshire

Marwell Zoo

Method:

In our investigation we are going to do three things

1. Think about the types of behaviours our animals (or

family) show and what they tell us.

2. Think about how we can record and display our results

3. Compare our results with other students in your school or

other schools involved with Trio Sci Cymru.

Step 2 – Watch your animal’s behaviour

Watch your animal or video and write down everything you

see them do for 15 minutes - that includes things like eating,

grooming, sleeping, rolling over or rubbing up against things.

A great fun way to do this (but not essential) is to video them

– you can do this on a smart phone, tablet or a sports camera

like a Go-Pro. This means you can re-watch your subject to

make sure you didn’t miss anything.

Step 1 – Choose an animal to study.

This could be any pet, animal in your garden or even a member

of your family that you would like to observe.

The main thing is that you should be able to record their

behaviour for about 15 minutes at a time, this works especially

well with animals in a cage e.g. hamsters and guinea pigs.

Look at the links on the previous page to sites with live streams

from webcams showing animals in zoos.

Step 3 – Design an Ethogram.

An ethogram is a list of behaviours you have seen and are

going to record. We give each behvaviour a code. Look at our

example and use our template (There is a Word, Excel or a

PDF version you can print out) to design your own ethogram

based on what you saw your animal do.

Step 4 – Record your animals behaviour.

Tally the number of times your animal showed each

behaviour in your ethogram over 15 minutes. As before you

can watch this in real time or video it and record your results

from the playback.

Behaviour Code Description Tally

Stretching StAnimal stands up and stretches out

front legs

Eating wet food EaW Cat makes a visit to eat wet food

Eating dry food EaD Cat makes a visit to eat dry food

Rubbing RuCat rubs face up against the side of a

piece or furniture or person

Grooming Gr Cat grooms itself by licking

Resting Re Cat lying down asleep or not moving

Hunting Hu

Cat shows hunting behaviour -

creeping along the ground ears up in

the air

Tail Jiggling TjCat puts tail straight up in the air and

jiggles the end of it

Behaviour Behaviour Code Number of time observed in 15 mins

Stretching St 1

Eating wet food EaW 2

Eating dry food EaD 1

Rubbing Ru 5

Grooming Gr 2

Resting Re 2

Hunting Hu 0

Tail Jiggling Tj 3

Step 5 – Graph your results

From your tally chart you should now be able to make a simple

bar chart. You can draw this on paper or better still record

your results in Excel (See our examples).

Step 6 – Try to explain your results – What did your pet do

most of and why? Do you think they might do different things

at different times of the day?

Step 7 – Share your results with us

All scientists around the world share their results for others to

compare with. Why not let see pictures of your pets and your

results by sending them back to your teachers. We can then

post these on our website – it will be really exciting to see

what you have discovered!!

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

St EaW EaD Ru Gr Re Hu Tj

Nu

mb

er

of

ob

se

rva

tio

ns

in 1

5 m

ins

Behaviour code

Observation of cat behaviours (am)

Extension activities:

• Why not look at your pet at different times of day and

compare them? (We have provided a template for

graphing these.)

• Why not compare different pets at the same time to see

if there are differences? (We have provided a template

for tallying and graphing these.)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

St EaW EaD Ru Gr Re Hu Tj

Nu

mb

er

of

ob

se

rva

tio

ns

in 1

5 m

ins

Behaviour code

Observation of cat behaviours A.M. and P.M.

AM

PM

0

1

2

3

4

5

St EaW EaD Ru Gr Re Hu Tj

Nu

mb

er

of

ob

se

rva

tio

ns

in 1

5 m

ins

Behaviour code

Observation of two cat's behaviour (A.M.)

Mia

Extension activities:

• Why not repeat your observations at the same time every

week while you are at home?

Keep everything the same and just do a quick observation

at the same time of the week over the coming month.

(We have provided a template for tallying and graphing

this.)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

St EaW EaD Ru Gr Re Hu Tj

Nu

mb

er

of

ob

se

rva

tio

ns

in 1

5 m

ins

Behaviour code

Observations of cat behaviour over 4 weeks (A.M.)

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4