Ethology is the study of animal behaviors in a natural environment. This is opposed to behaviorism, where they study trained animals in lab environments. Behaviorism also doesn't focus on the evolutionary aspects, since they're in a lab environment. Ethologists will view the behavior and examine them from an evolutionary perspective, looking for clues towards adaptations.

There have been many naturalists that pushed the boundary, but none quite like Charles Darwin. Darwin travelled to many different tropical islands, most notably the Island of the Galapagos, and write about how species adapted in their environments. He would go on to make the Theory of Evolution along with another scientist, Alfred Russel Wallace.

Ethology would not officially start with Charles Darwin. In modern times, scientists generally believe that the term started in the 1930s. This was due to the works of three people, Dutch biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen, who helped start the field, and Austrian biologists Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch. The two Austrian biologists would receive a joint award for the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Ethology encompasses many aspects of science. It combines both laboratory work and studying in the field. It has strong ties to ecology, evolutionary biology, and neuroanatomy. Ethologists will focus almost entirely on the way species behavior develops. An example of this would be the study in aggression of impalas and baboons. The baboons will kill and eat the baby impalas, partially for the protein, but mostly due to aggression and asserting their dominance.

Ethology has grown with the turn of the century. Topics like animal communication, how their culture develops, how they learn, their emotions and their reproductive natures are highlights of modern ethology. The works recently have made almost all former information obsolete, because scientists at the time thought they knew a great deal about the topics. From ethology, other sciences have sprouted, like neuroethology, which is the study of evolution and adaptation on the nervous system.

Ethology helps train animals into the way trainers want them to act. This does not just include domesticated animals like cats and dogs, but also zoo animals. With ethology, trainers can look at information gathered on specific species or breeds and know the best way to go about helping them in a natural environment.

There are many ways ethology helps us in a day to day life. Scientists are looking towards ethology to better understand animals, and help create new methods to preserving them in a natural environment. Understanding how animals behave in a natural setting is important to preserving species, and will help create more solid groundwork for animals to exist with us.

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