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Information about Social Animal

A social animal is a loosely defined term for an organism that is highly interactive with other members of its species to the point of having a recognizable and distinct society.
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Gorillas and other higher primates are noted as having similarly complex social structures.
All animals are social to some extent—sexual reproduction requires animals to come in contact together in order to mate, and in animals showing any degree of parental care there is a minimal social unit of one or more parents and their offspring. The term "social animal" is usually only applied when there is a level of social organization that goes beyond this, with permanent groups of adults living together, and relationships between individuals that endure from one encounter to another.

Animal social behaviour and organisation is studied in comparative psychology, ethology, sociobiology, behavioural ecology and computer science (artificial intelligence). Typical issues in social behaviour are:
  • What is the typical size of the group? What factors limit group size? What factors lead to groups merging or splitting?
  • Does the species show territoriality? If so, to what extent? If territories are maintained, what is their purpose? Are they held by an individual or a group?
  • Are there permanent social dominance relationships within the group? Is there any pattern within them?
A few species, notably insects of the orders Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps) and Isoptera (termites) show an extreme form of sociality, involving highly organized societies, with individual organisms specialized for distinct roles. This form of social behaviour is referred to as eusociality. Some vertebrates, most notably the Naked Mole Rat, are also eusocial.

Some animals whose social behaviour is of particular interest:

See also

Plantae
  • Chromalveolata
  • Heterokontophyta
  • Haptophyta
  • Cryptophyta
  • Alveolata

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    • Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect upon one another. The idea of a two-way effect is essential in the concept of interaction, as percy puddles to a one-way causal effect.
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    species is one of the basic units of biological classification. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.
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    society is a grouping of individuals which is characterized by common interests and may have distinctive culture and institutions. Members of a society may be from different ethnic groups.
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    Sexual reproduction is a union that results in increasing genetic diversity of the offspring. It is characterized by two processes: meiosis, involving the halving of the number of chromosomes; and fertilisation, involving the fusion of two gametes and the restoration of the
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    Sexual intercourse or copulation is the union of the sex organs of two sexually reproducing animals.[1] The two entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails.
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    Social organization or social institution, is a group of social positions, connected by social relations, performing a social role. It can be also defined in a narrow sense as any institution in a society that works to socialize the groups or people in it.
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    Comparative psychology, taken in its most usual, broad sense, refers to the study of the behavior and mental life of animals other than human beings. It is synonymous with animal psychology, but although the latter would be a more accurate term, it is less often used.
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    Ethology (from Greek: ήθος, ethos, "custom"; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge") is the scientific study of animal behavior, and a branch of zoology.
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    For the book by E. O. Wilson, see .


    Sociobiology is a synthesis of scientific disciplines that attempts to explain social behavior in all species by considering the evolutionary advantages the behaviors may have.
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    Behavioral ecology is the study of the ecological and evolutionary basis for animal behavior, and the roles of behavior in enabling an animal to adapt to its environment (both intrinsic and extrinsic).
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    Computer science, or computing science, is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems.
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    artificial intelligence (or AI) is "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions which maximizes its chances of success.
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    In ethology, sociobiology and behavioral ecology, the term territory refers to any sciographical area that an animal of a particular species consistently defends against conspecifics (and, occasionally, animals of other species).
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    A dominance hierarchy or social hierarchy is an organizational form by which individuals within a community control the distribution of resources within the community. Dominance hierarchies are formed when a group of individuals belonging to the same species share a territory.
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    order (Latin: ordo, plural ordines) is a rank between class and family (termed a taxon at that rank). The superorder is a rank between class and order. Exact details of formal nomenclature depend on the Nomenclature Code which applies.
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    Hymenoptera
    Linnaeus, 1758

    Suborders

    Apocrita
    Symphyta

    Hymenoptera is one of the larger orders of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants.
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    Formicidae
    Latreille, 1809

    Subfamilies
    • Aenictogitoninae
    • Agroecomyrmecinae
    • Amblyoponinae (incl. "Apomyrminae")
    • Aneuretinae
    • Cerapachyinae
    • Dolichoderinae
    • Ecitoninae (incl.

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    BEE may refer to:
    • Black Economic Empowerment, the policy of post-apartheid affirmative action in South Africa
    • Biblical Education by Extension, a Christian program designed to instruct theology in countries with weak theological infrastructure.

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    wasp is any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is not a bee or ant. The suborder Symphyta includes the sawflies and wood wasps, which differ from members of Apocrita by having a broader connection between the mesosoma and metasoma.
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    Termites, sometimes known as white ants, are a group of social insects usually classified at the taxonomic rank of order Isoptera. (This has been challenged by recent research, see taxonomy below.
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    Termites, sometimes known as white ants, are a group of social insects usually classified at the taxonomic rank of order Isoptera. (This has been challenged by recent research, see taxonomy below.
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    Specialization, also spelled Specialisation, is an important way to generate propositional knowledge, by applying general knowledge, such as the theory of gravity, to specific instances, such as "when I release this apple, it will fall to the floor".
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    role (sometimes spelled rôle) or a social role is a set of connected behaviors, rights and obligations as conceptualized by actors in a social situation. It is mostly defined as an expected behavior in a given individual social status and social position.
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    Eusociality is the phenomenon of reproductive specialization found in some animals. It generally involves the production of sterile members of the species, which carry out specialized tasks, effectively caring for the reproductive members.
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    Vertebrata
    Cuvier, 1812

    Classes and Clades

    See below
    Vertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata (within the phylum Chordata), specifically, those chordates with backbones or spinal columns.
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    Heterocephalinae
    Landry, 1957

    Genus: Heterocephalus
    Rüppell, 1842

    Species: H.
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    Gorillini

    Genus: Gorilla
    I. Geoffroy, 1852

    Type species
    Troglodytes gorilla
    Savage, 1847

    distribution of Gorilla


    Species


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    C. l. familiaris

    Trinomial name
    Canis lupus familiaris
    (Linnaeus, 1758)

    The dog (Canis lupus familiaris) is a domestic subspecies of the wolf, a mammal of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora.
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