How animals behave is crucial to their survival and reproduction. The application of new molecular tools such as DNA fingerprinting and genomics is causing a revolution in the study of animal behavior, while developments in computing and image analysis allow us to investigate behavior in ways never previously possible. By combining these with the traditional methods of observation and experiments, we are now learning more about animal behavior than ever before.

In this Very Short Introduction Tristram D. Wyatt discusses how animal behavior has evolved, how behaviors develop in...