A Primer on Animal Behavior
As we sat on our small research boat in Spoonbill Cove, watching a single manatee "resting" in one of our known resting hole sites, one of my students pointed out a dolphin's dorsal fin as it broke the surface about 100 meters off, in Bogue E. Bogue E is one of the larger channels within the convoluted maze of mangrove islands we call the Drowned Cayes and our Study Area. It's not unusual to find dolphins and manatees near each other in this habitat - but it's rare that we observe interaction between the two species. We watched as the dolphin slowly worked it's way into Spoonbill Cove, foraging for fish under the red mangrove roots. As it swam near the resting hole, the manatee "woke up" and began to follow the dolphin! We ended our scan and started a focal follow on this dyad. We followed these two amazing animals for almost two hours as they made their way out of Spoonbill Cover, and traveled slowly west in Bogue E where they were joined by a second manatee before we lost sight of the trio!
We categorize animal behavior many ways. Two of our dichotomous categories are behavioral states and behavioral events. Behavioral states describe a continuous behavior state that can be timed, such as resting, foraging, socializing, playing, milling, mating, and traveling....terms used in the description above. Behavioral events describe single actions that can be counted, such as breaths, bites, dives, thrusts, tail slaps, jumps, etc.
Classifying behavioral states and behavioral events is extremely difficult in the marine mammal world, where our subjects spend most of their time below the water's surface. Think about this as you watch the video previously posted by Jazmin along with her question. She is asking you to categorize the behavioral state of the dolphin. The clip is short and we cannot see beneath the surface. Could they be socializing? Foraging? Playing? Mating? How many different events can you describe and count?
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