Animal Behavior Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. Woodlice move rapidly in dry conditions but slow down in humid conditions. As a result, they accumulate in damp areas without steering directly toward moisture. What behavior does this illustrate?
Positive taxis
Negative taxis
Kinesis, in which movement rate changes with conditions
Migration guided by a cognitive map
2. Herring gull chicks peck at a red mark on a parent's bill even without being taught. Which concept best describes this response?
An innate response released by a specific sign stimulus
Operant conditioning maintained by food rewards
Habituation to a frequently encountered visual cue
Imprinting on the individual that provides care
3. In a bird species, females consistently prefer males with longer tails, and preferred males gain more mates. This pattern is most directly an example of:
Natural selection for predator avoidance
Kin selection through aid to relatives
Intersexual selection through mate choice
Artificial selection imposed by humans
4. After repeated harmless touches, a sea slug gradually stops withdrawing its gill. Which learning process has occurred?
Sensitization
Habituation
Classical conditioning
Observational learning
5. Unrelated vampire bats repeatedly share food with familiar partners, and recipients are more likely to return the favor later. Which explanation best fits this pattern?
Habituation caused by repeated exposure
Kin selection based only on shared genes
Reciprocal altruism supported by repeated interactions
A fixed action pattern triggered by food odors
6. An animal is feeding in a patch where food becomes harder to find over time. According to the marginal value theorem, when should it generally leave for another patch?
As soon as it consumes the first available food item
Only after every food item in the patch has been consumed
Whenever another animal enters, regardless of food availability
When its current intake rate falls to the environment's expected average, accounting for travel time
7. Which property can help keep an animal signal honest rather than allowing every individual to display it equally?
Producing or maintaining the signal is more costly for lower-quality individuals
The signal is completely unrelated to the sender's condition
Receivers are unable to alter their behavior after detecting the signal
The signal is hidden from all potential competitors and mates
8. Which feature distinguishes a territory from a home range?
A territory must contain every resource an animal uses
A territory is actively defended against certain intruders
A territory is always smaller than the animal's nesting site
A territory is occupied only during migration
9. A rat presses a lever, receives food, and consequently presses the lever more often. Which process best explains the increase?
Classical conditioning
Negative reinforcement
Positive punishment
Positive reinforcement
10. A tone initially causes no salivation in a dog. After the tone is repeatedly paired with food, the tone alone produces salivation. The tone has become what?
An unconditioned stimulus
A conditioned stimulus
A conditioned response
An unconditioned response
11. A ground squirrel gives an alarm call that attracts a predator's attention but helps nearby close relatives escape. Which idea best explains how this behavior could evolve?
Reciprocal altruism between unrelated individuals
Kin selection through inclusive fitness benefits
Individual selection through immediate personal survival
Random genetic drift without fitness consequences
12. A nocturnal rodent's daily activity schedule shifts after researchers change the timing of the light-dark cycle. In this case, light is functioning as:
A fixed action pattern
A supernormal stimulus
A reward that produces operant conditioning
A zeitgeber that synchronizes a circadian rhythm
13. Newly hatched goslings begin following the first conspicuous moving object they encounter during a brief early-life period. This is an example of:
Latent learning
Trial-and-error learning
Sensitization
Imprinting
14. A male songbird begins singing more often in spring because longer daylight alters its hormone levels. What kind of explanation is this?
A phylogenetic explanation comparing the behavior across species
An ultimate explanation describing the behavior's evolutionary benefit
A proximate explanation describing the immediate mechanism
A functional explanation identifying how singing improves reproductive success
15. A bird facing a conflict between approaching a rival and retreating suddenly begins preening despite having no obvious feather-care need. This is best described as:
A displacement activity associated with conflicting motivations
A conditioned avoidance response
A circadian maintenance behavior
A territorial display
16. A young crow watches another crow open a food container. It later uses the observed method successfully without first discovering it by trial and error. What does this most clearly demonstrate?
Social learning
Habituation
Classical conditioning
Sensory adaptation