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Bird's nest in grass. Nesting behavior is an instinct in animals during reproduction where they prepare a place with optimal conditions to nurture their offspring. [1] The nesting place provides protection against predators and competitors that mean to exploit or kill offspring. [2] It also provides protection against the physical environment. [1]
Nest architecture may be as useful for distinguishing species as the animals' physical appearance. Species identified through such means are called ethospecies. This is especially common in wasps and termites, but also can apply to birds. In most animals, there is some variation in nest construction between individuals.
Another example of a behavior that has been described as a fixed action pattern is the egg-retrieval behavior of the greylag goose, reported in classic studies by Niko Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz. [5] Like many ground-nesting birds, if an egg becomes displaced from the nest, the greylag rolls it back to the nest with its beak.
Nest building is habitual behaviour, [14] and nest-counts and faecal analysis at each nest site can be used to estimate hominid ape population counts and composition. [15] In the case of orangutans and chimpanzees, social influences are probably essential for the animals to develop successful nesting-behaviour.
Gestation is the period of development during the carrying of an embryo, and later fetus, inside viviparous animals (the embryo develops within the parent). [1] It is typical for mammals, but also occurs for some non-mammals. Mammals during pregnancy can have one or more gestations at the same time, for example in a multiple birth. [2]
Vertebrate maternal behavior is a form of parental care that is specifically given to young animals by their mother in order to ensure the survival of the young. [1] Parental care is a form of altruism, which means that the behaviors involved often require a sacrifice that could put their own survival at risk. [1]
Sociality is the degree to which individuals in an animal population tend to associate in social groups (gregariousness) and form cooperative societies. Sociality is a survival response to evolutionary pressures. [1] For example, when a mother wasp stays near her larvae in the nest, parasites are less likely to eat the larvae. [2]
Four apostlebirds (Struthidea cinerea) of a cooperative breeding group.Helpers at the nest is a term used in behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology to describe a social structure in which juveniles and sexually mature adolescents of either one or both sexes remain in association with their parents and help them raise subsequent broods or litters, instead of dispersing and beginning to ...