Instinctive, Innate Behaviors

Smelts are fish that lay their eggs in the sand of a beach. When the eggs hatch, the babies know to go to the water. This is an example of...

• inherited behavior
• camouflage
• hibernation
• learned behavior

Why is a spider spinning a web an instinctive behavior?

• It learns how to spin the web from its mother.

• It learns how to spin a web through insight learning.

• It is born knowing how to spin a web.

• It learns how to spin a web through observational learning.

A scientist observes sea otters using rocks to break open clamshells. Which of these investigations would best help the scientist determine whether this skill is a learned or an inherited behavior?

• Determining what sizes and kinds of rocks are used most often by sea otters
• Determining whether shellfish are an important food source in the diet of sea otters
• Raising young sea otters away from adult otters that use rocks and observing whether the young otters use rocks
• Observing families of sea otters over time to see whether adults that use rocks have offspring that use rocks

A physical characteristic that an organism is born with and is passed to the organism from its parents is called an:

• Learned Behavior
• Offspring
• Inherited Physical Trait

a characteristic that is passed from parents to their offspring

• inherited traits

• instinctive behavior

• acquired trait

• learned behavior

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS3-2

a behavior that an animal inherits from it's parents

• instinctive behavior

• function

• structure

• adaptation

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS1-4

a physical characteristic that is not inherited, and may be an effect of the environment such as a scar or missing limb

• acquired trait

• learned behavior

• inherited trait

• instinctive behavior

The nine-banded armadillo is an animal that lives in the forest areas of East Texas. It has bony plates that cover its back, head, legs and tail.

Which of these is a trait that an armadillo most likely inherits from its parents?

• the type of plants in its habitat

• the amount of food it eats each day

• the color of the bony plates

• the distance it walks to find food

Which table below correctly organizes examples as either inherited traits or learned behaviors?

• 
• 
• 
• None of the above

In winter, a bat stays in its cave, and its body temperature drops, its heart rate slows to a fraction of its normal rate, and it is barely breathing. What is this behavior called?

• Migration

• Hibernation

• courtship behavior

• territorial behavior