Biology Extended Experimental Investigation... I want to do Animal Behaviour somehow... any Ideas??

Question

So basically its a Extended Prac and we're allowed to do anything and i really want to do animal behaviour (the whole reason i took biology in the first place) but i don't know how im gunna do Animal behaviour without it turning into like a thesis length assignment, ie. keeping it to a yr12 standard not pro... i dont know if that makes sense but yeah :P Ideas would be VERY appreciated :)

In respose to Janet... i know i wasnt very clear :P ummm.... The task is : "You are to undertake a scientific research project on a topic of your choice." pretty vague huh... so it has to include like experiments/trials... stuff we can make conclusions from etc. so I dunno wat u can do with animals and their behaviour that limits the millions of variables and allows u to make specific conclusions... and something that isnt goin to take a year to do.......... :S

Answer 1

Animal behaviour is notoriously difficult to study in a small scale project unless you do it on something such as pigeon mate preference (do different colours mate with each other or do they mix it up) It requires about a week's worth of afternoons in a park (usually with a loaf of bread) but the mating behaviour is dead easy to quantify and has a few stats, but nothing too difficult. To get any worthwhile data, think small at this stage, if you take biology further, you can broaden your scope and manipulate your specimens in a more experimental manner (i.e. behaviour in lab rats kept in differing conditions etc)


Pets are NOT good study specimens as your personal relationship affects their behaviour and even observing them with strangers will be affected if its in their own environment and if it is somewhere outside their normal range it will alter too many variables to make any conclusion scientifically valid. Which means a bad mark. Study design is everything!

Answer 2

Best place to start is at home with pets. Cats are very unique and they posses skills and behaviors more advanced than the other house pets.
Cats have a perception or the ability to know when something is going to happen. Without making any special moves or noises, my cat knows when I want to do something to her ie., throw her out or brush her when she does not want to be bothered.
My cat greets me when I come home. She waits outside on the wall next to the stairs and as I climb the stairs, coming level to where she sits she leans over and we gently bump heads. . .just as all felines greet one another.
Cats bring their kill and present it to their owners and then eat it themselves.

Do a project on feline or cat behavior, there should be a lot of material available on the subject starting from Egyptian times.
The Egyptians worshiped cats and also mummified them for after life.

Answer 3

You need to look at what is easiest for you to utilise, and what you can do at home. Chicken/hen pecking order is an easy one to start with if you have space for them ie who eats first all the way down to last, they actually beat up on the hen lower down the order, also reasonably easy is maze running in mice (you could even test wild vs pet mice). Or can you make a dog salivate at the sound of a bell... heaps of info on that too

Answer 4

I am little confused after reading your question. You want to do an ethogram? An ethogram is a complete description of an animal's behavior based on direct observation of the animal in nature. I had to do one for my Animal Behavior class in college.