Animal Behavior

by Mark Ridley

This classic textbook is a concise introductory guide to the subject of animal behavior. The book is organized by first building the four-cornered foundations of the subject, then moving higher. In an extremely well-organized progression, the student is lead to an understanding of the essential topics, explained in logical self-contained units. Each chapter ends with suggestions for further reading. In this second edition, the coverage of mechanisms of behavior is much expanded, as is the material on evolution and natural selection. The chapter on development includes much of the new work on learning and memory, especially song-learning in birds. Indeed throughout the book, examples are drawn from recent ground-breaking research.

300 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1986

Reviews

[Mizrob A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well organized book with huge amount of information for such length. Healthy mix of theory and empirical works. Each chapter is about a specific topic (e.g. signals, conflict, cooperation, foraging, etc.) and starts with presenting the problem, then introduces theories/explanations and empirical works. Each chapter ends with concise summary and list of citations. If they updated (more recent empirical works) and expanded making it more technical, this would make a fantastic textbook.