Animal Behavior Research

Does it matter how much time a cow spends standing up or lying down? Bert Tolkamp thought that it did matter, and he proved his point by winning an IgNobel prize for his work on this.

By this point, we do not need to tell you how popular zebrafish are. We also probably do not need to point out the great technological advances that are being made in research because of the use of optogenetics.

Researchers are always looking for new ways to alleviate symptoms of arthritis. The CatWalk XT has been shown to be very useful in research involving arthritis in rodent models.

Ever heard of quantum dots? These dots are nanoparticles made of a semiconductor material, which have unique optical properties, making them of great interest for fields such as biological imaging, medical diagnostics.

Video tracking is used to track a widevariety of animal species in even more different test arenas. From insects of 1 mm on leaf discs, to monkeys in a cage, or zebra fish in an aquarium.

Having a choice for a mating partner is extremely important for females, so they can be critical in choosing which male to mate with.

Often in animal research, animals with a certain genetic alteration are compared to a “wild-type”. One might assume that there is no differences between wild-types, but many different strains of wild-type animals are used.

Did you know that plants are not as passive as they appear to be at first sight? Although plants cannot run away when they are attacked by plant eating insects, they have several sophisticated ways to defend themselves.

Some research requires animals to be studied in groups. For this it is very useful to have video tracking software that can automatically track the behavior of multiple animals simultaneously.

Studies of the mental disorder schizophrenia in lab animals often include behavioral tests to investigate social behavior, cognitive abilities, and motor functioning.