The video explores the intriguing world of animal behavior, specifically addressing why some animals, like the pumpkin toadlet, exhibit peculiar behaviors such as clumsy jumping. The video depicts how understanding animal behavior can be approached through proximate and ultimate levels of questioning. While the proximate level focuses on immediate factors influencing behavior, the ultimate level delves into evolutionary purposes and survival benefits.

To better comprehend these behaviors, scientists weave together different biological disciplines, exploring questions ranging from evolutionary history to anatomical structures. This interdisciplinary research is key in piecing together the complexities of how and why animals conduct themselves in certain ways. The video highlights the constant dialogue between innate behaviors with built-in genetic coding and learned behaviors shaped by experience and social learning. It charmingly demonstrates these distinctions using examples from the animal kingdom, including the remarkable communication skills of honeybees.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. entomologist [ˌɛntəˈmɑːlədʒɪst] - (noun) - A scientist who studies insects. - Synonyms: (bug scientist, insect expert, insectologist)

Hi, im doctor Sammy, your friendly neighborhood entomologist, and this is crash course biology.

2. acrobatics [ˌækrəˈbætɪks] - (noun) - Spectacular feats of agility and balance, often performed in the air or with considerable skill. - Synonyms: (gymnastics, stunt, athletic feat)

Why does jumping horribly help pumpkin toadlets survive or reproduce? In this case its not their acrobatics that gives them an edge.

3. innate [ɪˈneɪt] - (adjective) - Inborn or naturally present from birth. - Synonyms: (inborn, inherent, natural)

Starting at one end of the spectrum, we have innate behaviors which animals dont have to learn.

4. circadian [sɜːrˈkeɪdiən] - (adjective) - Relating to biological processes occurring in approximately 24-hour cycles. - Synonyms: (daily, 24-hour, biological clock)

These can also include broader patterns like circadian rhythms that influence when animals sleep and wake up.

5. imprinting [ˈɪmprɪntɪŋ] - (noun) - A kind of learning occurring at a particular age that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behavior. - Synonyms: (bonding, attachment, impression)

For instance, when a baby goose bonds with the first animal it sees, thats a type of learning called imprinting.

6. cognition [kɒɡˈnɪʃən] - (noun) - The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. - Synonyms: (perception, awareness, understanding)

The most complex kinds of learning are cognition and problem solving.

7. proximate [ˈprɒksɪmət] - (adjective) - Near or immediate; specifically referring to the immediate reasons or causes in biological terms. - Synonyms: (immediate, near, closest)

And when pursuing answers to those questions, a researcher is typically operating on one of two the proximate level or the ultimate level.

8. ultimate [ˈʌltɪmət] - (adjective) - Referring to the fundamental or final; in biology, it pertains to the evolutionary reasons why a behavior exists. - Synonyms: (final, fundamental, conclusive)

The ultimate reason why they exist.

9. specialization [ˌspɛʃəlaɪˈzeɪʃən] - (noun) - Focusing on a narrow area of knowledge or activity to become an expert in that area. - Synonyms: (expertise, focus, concentration)

And all of these questions about animal behavior tend to range widely throughout different areas of research done by different types of biologists. Even within the proximate and ultimate levels, theres a super wide variety of specialization needed.

10. circannual [sɜːrkˈænjuːəl] - (adjective) - Occurring on a yearly basis, often referring to biological rhythms that occur annually. - Synonyms: (yearly, annual, seasonal)

These can also include broader patterns like circadian rhythms that influence when animals sleep and wake up, and circannual clocks, which influence seasonal migration.

Animal Behavior - Why This Toad Is Bad at Jumping - Crash Course Biology #49

Meet the pumpkin toadlet. Theyre a genus of adorable, super tiny brazilian frogs that are bad at jumping. Like, look at that. Theyre just, theyre just doing their best. But why are they like this? How would a scientist even begin to figure that out? Q and a sessions with frogs tend to be one sided. I know ive had my fair share. The quest to understand animal behavior brings together researchers from the furthest corners of biology. Combining knowledge about evolution, body structures, cells, hormones, and more. Their powers combined can lead to some amazing insights, not only about why animals do what we do, but also whether we were born knowing how to do that thing, or whether we learned it along the way, or whether its somewhere in between.

Hi, im doctor Sammy, your friendly neighborhood entomologist, and this is crash course biology. Let our powers combine. Earth, fire, wind, water. Theme music an animals behavior is what it does, its actions, which covers a lot, whether its a panda rolling in horse poop to stay warm, ew, or goldfish hanging out on the side of the tank that the food comes in. Animals get up to some brilliant and bizarre stuff. And for a scientist, understanding the hows and whys can be a journey.

Like if you asked me, hey, doctor Sammy, how does monarch butterfly migration work? Id ask you to break it down into smaller questions, like, do you want to know what systems help them navigate? Or what triggers them to start flying? Or why this behavior evolved? Every question in animal behavior has dozens of smaller questions stuffed inside. And when pursuing answers to those questions, a researcher is typically operating on one of two the proximate level or the ultimate level.

So in the case of our pumpkin toadlet, we might ask whats happening within or around it to make it hop like that. Those are questions on the proximate level, which typically focuses on how behaviors happen, as in how is this behavior triggered and how does this action develop over an animals life? Well, if we look around the toadlet, we might find that its jumping wildly away when theres a threat nearby. But thats true of lots of frogs. So next, we might look within the toadlet, and there it is. Theres a structure inside their ears filled with fluid that should slosh around to help the animal orient itself. Except the pumpkin toadlet is so small, the laws of physics prevent that fluid from moving fast enough. So when they launch, they have no idea how their body is oriented, which, to be fair, is also how I, an adult man, feel on a trampoline.

Anyway, upon further investigation, wed learn that this behavior doesnt really change over the toadlets lives. In the case of our toadlet, friend. It cant be taught or untaught. Its just the way they are. But why? That nagging question brings us to the ultimate level, which despite the name, isnt better than any other type of research and doesnt involve a frisbee. Instead, at this level were looking at why behaviors evolved and stuck around in the first place. The ultimate reason why they exist.

Why does jumping horribly help pumpkin toadlets survive or reproduce? In this case its not their acrobatics that gives them an age, but that being so small seems to be helpful for their survival in their environment. And the poor jumping, as we know, is a result of their size. So basically they get more benefit from being small then they lose by being chaotic. At the ultimate level, we might also consider the evolutionary history of this behavior. So wed look through the frogs family tree to figure out when the switch flipped from wombo to mini and how their bodies changed along the way.

And all of these questions about animal behavior tend to range widely throughout different areas of research done by different types of biologists. Even within the proximate and ultimate levels, theres a super wide variety of specialization needed. Think about it, understanding evolution is going to require different knowledge and research than figuring out the anatomy of a frogs ear.

By investigating all these specific details, every team can contribute one piece of the puzzle, until suddenly we have a clear picture of how and why animals do what they do. And part of that picture is where, how or whether they learned the behavior. How much of it is a conscious decision versus some automatic script. Does my goldfish have free will? Well, I cant really answer that one, but I can say when it comes to animal decision making, theres a sliding scale with programmed or innate behaviors on one end and learned behaviors on the other.

Starting at one end of the spectrum, we have innate behaviors which animals dont have to learn. These are built into our DNA, like toadlets flailing or little baby humans grasping at fingers. And although the behaviors themselves might look involved, they dont usually require much thought. One example is a reflex. If your great aunts obsession with incense bothers your nose, youre going to automatically sneeze. You never had to learn how and you dont think about it. It just happens. Like how some apps come preinstalled on new phones.

And then there are fixed action patterns which are like more involved reflexes found in non human animals. Theyre a set of movements that can happen all across an animals body in response to some stimulus or cue. For example, if a praying mantis sees a tiny insect scurry past them under the right conditions, theyll automatically strike at it, and they cant stop or change direction once they get going, even if the prey has already escaped.

There are countless examples of things that animals do just because theyre innate. These can also include broader patterns like circadian rhythms that influence when animals sleep and wake up, and circannual clocks, which influence seasonal migration. These innate rhythms are why you probably feel sleepy around the same time each day, and why you may hear outrageously loud migrating geese at particular times a year.

Most of these innate behaviors stick around in populations or species because they give individuals a survival or reproductive advantage. And so the behaviors continue in successive generations. And that means innate behaviors can be shaped by evolution too. If one built in foraging strategy or parenting behavior makes an animal more likely to survive or make babies, that behavior will be selected for just like physical traits such as fur pattern would be.

But as someone whos spent your whole life in the animal kingdom, youve probably noticed that there are plenty of complex behaviors that arent completely built in, things we and other animals have to be taught and decide to do, like communication. Lets go to the thought bump. Honeybees love to dance, but they dont use their smooth moves to rack up millions of views. Not intentionally, anyway. They dance to communicate.

Bees that search for food called foragers perform what entomologists call a waggle dance to tell other bees about the food that they found, based on how long they waggle their abdomens and at what angle the bees can convey the foods, direction, distance, and quality. But some scientists in China wanted to figure out if these moves were taught to foragers by older bees or if they knew how to dance. Naily. So the researchers took some young bees with no dance experience and separated them from their colonies. And they compared this group to some regular colonies with veteran foragers that could show the young bees the ropes.

At first, the bees without role models were very bad at dancing. They couldnt accurately indicate where the food was, while the bees that watched the more experienced dancers were pretty spot on. After a while, the first set of bees did get better at saying which direction the food was in. But they never could get the waggle length down to indicate distance. So their dance moves could be improved on their own. But they get better faster and nail those distance signals with a good dance teacher. Thanks, thought bubble.

While some communication can be innate, many mating dances come preinstalled. Often, communication skills, whether theyre visual, chemical, or based on touch or sound, are something a baby animal has to learn. To a biologist, learning is the process that makes links between experiences and behavior.

For instance, when a baby goose bonds with the first animal it sees, thats a type of learning called imprinting. The goose has no idea its a goose, so it assumes the first living thing that it sees must be the same species. Good insight, goose. Theres also spatial learning, like when that goose gets older and learns where its nest is.

The most complex kinds of learning are cognition and problem solving. cognition involves analyzing information from the environment, including making decisions. And problem solving is, well, problem solving. You participate in these things all the time, navigating to a new classroom, figuring out what to put on your sandwich when you're out of peanut butter, deciding if jeans are juuuuuuuuuuust smelly enough that you have to wash them. They're all included.

And these aren't just human skills. Other primates, dolphins, octopuses, and more are capable of these kinds of learning. Like in a 2016 study, octopuses were taught to push l shaped blocks through a square hole, basically playing one of those shape sorter games that human toddlers are into. This kind of learning is way on the other side of the spectrum from innate behaviors. These skills do indirectly depend on an animals genetics, but mostly they have to be taught in our conscious actions. So learned behaviors are strongly shaped by an animals experience, environment, and culture.

So youve got innate behaviors on one end of the scale and learned behaviors on the other. But there are plenty of behaviors that are somewhere in between too, like a honeybees waggle dance or for humans, being able to remember things is one of your innate abilities. But how good you are at memorizing can change with practice.

Its a built in ability plus some conscious decision making. So how much of an action is up to an individual animal? It depends on the species and the behavior. And both proximate and ultimate studies can help researchers figure out the details. By combining information from all the different realms of biology, from body structure to DNA to evolution, scientists have been able to sort out key details about how and why animals behave the way they do, and how much of that is under their conscious control.

This work has answered fascinating questions, from why pumpkin toadlets cant stick a landing to why pandas roll in poop and why birds sing in the springtime. Each of these questions contains smaller, more detailed ones, like tiny mosaic tiles. And by combining thousands of them, researchers can put together a beautiful picture of what makes life on earth so incredible.

Biology, Animal Behavior, Science, Evolution, Innate Behavior, Learning Process, Crashcourse