Enjoying this, decades after first encountering de Waal via his excellent book on bonobos. The focus is still on primates, but he switches to birds, cetaceans, dogs, cephalopods, rats, etc. as appropriate

#books #CognitiveScience #zoology #AnimalBehavior #FransDeWaal #primatology

A deadpan De Waal on independent-mindedness in dogs and cats

#dogs #cats #ethology #reading #AnimalBehavior #research

"Ethology" referring to the study of animal behaviour is about a century old and was (somewhat) popularized through the work of Niko Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz, which is where I first saw it.

But it never quite caught on. Even now, as de Waal writes, spell-checkers "regularly change it to ethnology, etiology, or even theology".

#ethology #terminology #spelling #AnimalBehavior #research

@stancarey I first came across it reading Dr. Lindsay Whistance's work. She's a member of the International Society for Applied Ethology. A Teagasc researcher leads the Irish chapter.
@psneeze Ah. In one way it's a pity the word isn't better known, but in another it's not a great word for it, given how ambiguous "eth-" is.
@stancarey It's a disaster of a word. Disaster.