What is Ethology?
'''Ethology''' is the [[scientific]] study of [[animal]] [[behaviour]] (U.S. ''behavior''), and a sub-topic of [[zoology]]. Ethology overlaps, to some extent, with [[psychology]]. Psychology is a [[social science]] which studies human behaviour, but many [[psychologist]]s have done experiments on learning in animals.<ref>[[Thorndike]], [[Kohler]] and [[Skinner]], for example.</ref> Ethology studies animal behaviour, but many ethologists have been interested in human behaviour.<ref name=Thorpe>Thorpe W.H. 1979. ''The origins and rise of ethology: the science of the natural behaviour of animals''. Heinneman, London. {{ISBN|0435624415}}</ref> == Historical development== An American specialist on [[ant]]s, William Morton Wheeler, first used the term 'ethology' in English in 1902. The study of animal behaviour, which had been going on in an [[wikt:anecdote|anecdotal]] way since [[Aristotle]], had its roots in [[natural history]]. It became more scientific during the 19th century. The French zoologist [[Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire]] was the founder of ethology in Europe, and his son Isidore produced a three-volume encyclopaedia ''Histoire Naturelle Générale''. In the third volume he talked about animal behaviour in almost modern terms.<ref name=Thorpe/> The entomologist J.-H Fabre (1823–1915) was a remarkable observer of natural life. His popular writing on natural history kept ethology alive in Europe. [[Douglas Spalding]] (1841–1877) was a British biologist who was the first to notice the effect called [[imprinting]].<ref>Spalding D.A. 1873. Instinct, with original observations on young animals. ''Macmillan's Magazine'', '''27''', 282-293.</ref><ref>Spalding D.A. 1872. On instinct. ''Nature'', '''6''', 485-486.</ref> [[Instinct]] and imprinting were the first scientific concepts in ethology. He was able to prove that the behaviour of [[chicks]] after hatching from the egg happened even when they had no experience, practice or even information from the [[senses]]. Therefore, the capacity was inherited.<ref name=