Margaret Bastock studied zoology at Oxford from 1946 to 1949 and became a zoology tutor at and, later, a Fellow of St. Anne's College, Oxford. She worked for her Ph.D. under Professor N. Tinbergen and through him became acquainted with the work of the chief ethologists in Europe and the United States. Her original work has concentrated on the inheritance and organization of behavior in insects, and her principal interests include all aspects of animal behavior, genetics, and evolution.