What type of science is ethology?

Ethology is the study of animal behaviour. It is a discipline with long traditions and one of few non-medicine biological disciplines that have generated Nobel prizes.

The behaviour of animals is fundamental to whether individuals will survive and reproduce and studying their behaviour is therefore essential to fully understand evolution.

Ethology deals with two types of causal explanations to behaviour; one that deals with motivational mechanisms and the experience of animals as causing the behaviour (proximate explanations) and one that deals with selection pressures and phylogenetic factors that cause the evolution of behaviour (ultimate explanations).

In ethology, we are interested in and study both the proximate and the ultimate levels of animal behaviour. These two levels complement each other and help us achieve a more complete understanding of animal behaviour and evolution. Having both levels in perspective also help us ask the right kind of questions taking into account both an evolutionary and a more mechanistic approach.

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