In general, the type of communication that emerges is directly connected to the lifestyle and habitat of an animal. Most terrestrial animals, for example, are nocturnal, making visual displays useless. Instead, these animals rely on olfactory and auditory cues, which operate just as effectively in the dark as they do in the day.

Most birds, on the other hand, are diurnal (active largely during the day) and communicate primarily by visual and aural cues. Humans, like birds, are diurnal and communicate largely through visual and aural cues. Thus, we can detect and enjoy the melodies and brilliant colors used by birds to communicate, but we overlook numerous chemical cues utilized by other animals to guide their behavior.

Animal communication contains a wide range of information.

The symbolic language of the European honeybee (Apis mellifera), discovered in the early 1900s by Austrian researcher Karl von Frisch, is one of the most outstanding instances.

He and his students spent decades studying honeybees in glass-walled observation hives. Von Frisch was able to discern a "dance language" used by returning foragers to notify other bees about the distance and direction of the journey to a nectar source by meticulously documenting bee motions.

When a successful forager returns to the hive, its motions, noises, and scents rapidly become the focus of other bees, known as followers (as shown in the attached image).

The forager conducts a "waggle dance" as it moves up the vertical wall of the honeycomb, communicating to the following bees both the direction and distance of the food source in relation to the hive.

The bee follows a half-circle swing in one direction, a straight run during which it waggles its abdomen, and a half-circle swing in the opposite way while executing the dance. Von Frisch and colleagues determined that the angle of the straight run relative to the vertical surface of the hive indicated the horizontal.

The attached image shows the honeybee dance language. Honeybees returning to the hive communicate the location of food sources through the symbolic language of dance.

The totality of an animal's responses to external and internal stimuli is referred to as behavior. Proximate, or “how,” issues in behavior studies focus on the inputs that initiate a behavior as well as the genetic, physiological, and anatomical factors that underpin a behavioral act. The ultimate, or "why," questions are concerned with the evolutionary relevance.

A fixed action pattern is a mostly consistent activity that is elicited by a basic cue known as a sign stimulus. Navigation is required for migratory motions, which might be dependent on orientation relative to the sun, stars, or the Earth's magnetic field.

Animal behavior is frequently linked to the environment's circadian cycle of light and dark or to signals that cycle through the oceans.

Learning creates distinct linkages between experience and conduct.

Cross-fostering studies can be performed to assess the impact of the social environment and experience on behavior.

Individual survival and reproductive success selection can explain a wide range of behaviors.

Controlled laboratory studies can result in interpretable evolutionary changes in behavior.

An optimum foraging model is based on the concept that natural selection should promote foraging behavior that reduces foraging costs while maximizing rewards.

Sexual dimorphism is related to mating relationship patterns, which include monogamous and polygamous mating systems. Variations in the mating system and manner of fertilization alter paternity certainty, which has a substantial impact on mating behavior and parental care.

Game theory offers a means of thinking about evolution.

Insect genetic research have shown the existence of master regulatory genes that regulate complex behaviour. Multiple genes impact specific behaviors, like as a courtship song, within the underlying hierarchy. Vole research demonstrates how variations in a single gene may cause variances in complex behaviour.

Behavioral variance within a species that correlates to environmental variation might indicate prior evolution.

The notion of inclusive fitness helps explain altruism, which is the influence an individual has on propagating its genes by generating its own offspring and by offering assistance that allows close relatives to reproduce.

The coefficient of relatedness and Hamilton's rule allow us to weigh the strength of the selection pressures promoting altruism against the possible cost of "selfless" action. Kin selection promotes altruism by increasing the reproductive success of relatives