BBC Life Story Projects Assignment Work

Assignment details
We have been watching the Life Story series as the basis for our explorations and discussions into animal behavior. The goal of the series is to gain a better appreciation for and analysis of the challenges animals must meet as they arrive at birth up through parenthood. One key theme we have discussed throughout the semester is the balance between innate motor programming and learned behavior and how difficult it is to tease apart the two.

For this assignment, I am providing an opportunity to further develop those themes we have discussed this year and apply them to the steps of life offered in the series. The series is broken down into the following stages. You are to choose an animal you are interested in learning more about and write up an interactive webpage that highlights the different challenges presented in each stage of life, thinking about the following themes in each…

1. First Steps
a. We really keyed in on sign stimuli and innate programming here. How do animals learn to identify their parents and make that first leap into life outside the egg or womb? Imprinting? What are some interesting behaviors to highlight in these initial stages of life? We had a lot of conversations on this from Fly Away Home in birds to salmon migration. Here is the summary of the video from the BBC site.

For animals there is just one goal in life - to continue their bloodline in the form of offspring, the next best thing to immortality. The series shows how animals attempt to overcome the challenges that face them at each of the six crucial stages of life as they strive towards ultimate success. In the first episode, animals overcome their first great hurdle - surviving infancy.

Flightless barnacle goose chicks face their greatest challenge at the very start of their lives. In order to find food they must leap 400 feet down a cliff, from the ledge where they hatched.

Young fur seals in New Zealand have found the perfect place to learn how to avoid predators like killer whales. Instead of swimming out to sea they have discovered a stream that leads into the forest and ends at a magical splash pool below a waterfall. Here the youngsters learn together in perfect safety.

The little-known long-eared jerboa, deep in the Gobi desert, has the largest ears relative to its body of any animal on earth. On its first night alone, it learns how to use its astonishing hearing to detect insect prey in the darkness.

Albatross chicks make their first flight from the Pacific island where they were born, but huge tiger sharks are waiting for any that misjudge and land on the sea.

i.

2. Growing Up
a. In this unit, we really focused on learning in animals, from observational learning and mentoring in animals to social living and cooperative care. It is during this unit that we took a lot of time out to discuss conditioning and associative learning so this could be a highlight of what you discuss. Here’s BBc’s summary of this video to jog your memory.

i. In the journey towards adulthood, a moment comes for all animals when they must strike out on their own. With their parents absent they must learn to survive in a dangerous world. At this stage of life every small success may mean the difference between life and death.

3. Home
a. In this unit, we really invested animal cognition and the ability to plan out homes. Our class discussions centered around beavers building homes as well as termites. Are animals using cognition or is it just a series of motor programs that are acting like sophisticated plans?

Here is BBc’s summary

Animals must find somewhere to live - a place that provides the necessities of life, shelter from the elements and a refuge from enemies.

Good homes are rare and competition can be intense - finding a home is one thing, but defending it is quite another.

Home for a pack of African hunting dogs is a vast plain in Zambia. But it's far from safe. They must protect their young from predators and battle their age-old enemy, the hyena.

Hermit crabs on an isolated tropical island make their homes in empty snail shells. But there is a severe housing shortage. When a new property washes ashore the crabs form an orderly queue, in order of size. It's a housing chain. When the chain is complete each crab moves into the newly-vacated shell ahead of it in the line.

Chimps have made a home on the edge of the Sahara desert. They only survive by knowing how to find water even in the most extreme droughts. The elders lead their troop on a brutal trek to a dried-out riverbed. Once there they know exactly where to dig to create wells.

4. Power
a. In this unit, we really focused on dominance behavior and aggression- sometimes dominance may be achieved through fighting for access to mates or territory for food. Sometimes power can be achieved by forming alliances or being sneaky. Hierarchical societies, the use of gestures (as learned in our primate unit) are great ways of establishing dominance and power without necessarily fighting. Draw on information we learned in the first part of the semester in primate communication for help. Here is BBc’s summary…

Animals must try to gain a position of power in their worlds. The most powerful have best access to food and water, and they are also the most attractive to the opposite sex.

An orphaned, friendless, young chimp leaves his playful youth behind as he attempts to climb the social ladder. His troop is ruled by big, aggressive males. His first attempt to join them ends in a beating, but making his first friend changes his life. Together, they hunt for small mammals using spears, and share the spoils. It's an act that changes them from friends to allies.

In meerkat society knowledge is power, and knowing how to deal with a venomous snake is essential for any youngster who wants to be a player in its world.

Few young, male kangaroos will ever get to occupy the top spot in their world. The only way is to fight and beat the 8-foot ruling male in a brutal boxing match.

5. Courtship
a. We didn’t spend a lot of time in this unit but certainly a huge theme this year was what animals will do for access to mates and mate selection. Draw on the few examples we saw of elaborate courtship rituals. There’s a lot of fun stuff here to explore. Here’s BBc’s summary to jog your memory

The competition to breed has created both the most extraordinary beauty and the most violent battles seen in nature. Waved albatross pair for life and spend hours canoodling with each other. But for a male peacock jumping spider one wrong move in his dazzling courtship routine may well prove fatal.

A male flame bowerbird creates a stick sculpture decorated with shells and berries to impress a mate. Even that isn't enough. He then uses it as a backdrop to show off his vivid colours in a dazzling dance. But things don't go to plan as his bower is destroyed by mischievous youngsters and a rival male.

But the most extraordinary display of all is created by a tiny, drab male pufferfish. He builds a spectacular submarine 'crop circle' in the sand. It's the most perfect and complex structure created by any animal. The crop circles were only discovered in southern Japan in 1995 and the fish architect was only identified in 2011.

6. Parenthood
a. This will be homework for Friday- the ending to the series! Hope you enjoyed it!