Educator

Social Behavior

• Social behavior is any kind of interaction between two or more animals, usually of the same species.

• Although animals can’t speak, they are capable of communicating in rich and complex ways. Besides auditory communication, animals communicate visually, and by touch, as well as chemically through smell and by signaling molecules called pheromones. In this Lesson, we'll explore the various ways animals communicate.

• An essential social interaction in which animals engage is mating behavior. We'll look at some of the different behaviors animals use to attract a partner or series of partners.

• Many social behaviors have costs and benefits, and we’ll consider these in relation to two major activities: avoiding predators and foraging for food.

• One of the strangest social behaviors animals exhibit is altruism: behavior that is beneficial to other members of the species, but may not benefit the animal performing the behavior. We’ll see that altruism can be understood in terms of the survival of a set of genes rather than the survival of an individual.