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Lions hunt together in packs, called prides, to increase their chances of success. Most prey can outrun a single lion but not an entire hunting group. The group works together to stalk the prey and make a barrier to prevent its escape. They then pounce together to take down the prey. This behavior is an example of cooperation, which involves behaviors that improve the fitness of the individuals involved.

Vampire bats live together in tightly knit communities, providing protection and warmth to each other. A female vampire bat will donate food that she has collected from her hunt to a bat that is unable to hunt for its own food, voluntarily regurgitating and sharing part of its meal. This comes at a cost to the donor bat, because it has used energy to gather the food and is losing some energy by sharing.

Vampire bats keep track of which bats share food and, in turn, will share food with those bats. This is an example of reciprocity, another form of cooperative behavior among animals. The idea is that one action, such as sharing food, will result in a future beneficial response, such as being the recipient of shared food. Research has shown that bats in need of food received more donations if they had previously shared food with other bats.

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Sometimes, springboks hop on all four legs rather than run away when they spot a predator. This behavior, called pronking, alarms the rest of the herd but makes the individual visible to predators. Pronking gives the herd enough time to escape and signals to the predator that the herd already spotted it.

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Meerkats stand and watch for predators. When an individual sees a predator, it raises an alarm to the group. This signaling brings attention to itself and increases its own risk of being attacked but may save other individuals. This type of behavior is known as altruism. Altruism is a kind of behavior in which an animal reduces its own fitness to help other members of its social group. In other words, the animal appears to sacrifice itself for the good of the group.

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Inclusive fitness is about how animals can pass on their genes not just by having their own babies, but by helping their relatives survive too. When animals help their family members, they're actually helping to pass on some of their shared genes!

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Naked mole rats are native to parts of Africa. Unlike their relatives, including guinea pigs and porcupines, naked mole rats have long ratlike tails and pink, wrinkly skin that is nearly hairless. They spend almost their entire lives in darkness, living in underground community burrows. With an average 30-year life span, naked mole rats live longer than any other rodent.

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Kin selection explains why animals often help their relatives. Just like you might help your brother or sister, animals are more likely to share food or help protect relatives because they share some of the same genes.

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Communication is the sharing or exchange of information and is critical to the survival of individuals and groups, as well as for the species itself. Vocalizations, plumage, songs, mutual grooming, and pheromone trails are all forms of animal communication.

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Courtship displays are behaviors most often used by male members of a species to attract females. Scientists theorize that females use courtship displays to judge the condition of their potential mate or the quality of his genes.

For example,  blue-footed boobies high step and strut to show off their blue feet to potential partners. The pigment that gives the blue-footed booby its bright blue feet comes from its food. So an individual that is more successful at finding food will have brighter feet. The courtship "dance" helps females find the most fit partner.

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Defensive behaviors are responses to threatening stimuli from the environment. These various behaviors are meant to reduce harm to the individual. Animals will often put themselves in harm's way to protect their young as well.

For example, adult penguins will sometimes put themselves between their young and a petrel, who will eat young penguins. Groups of animals also will warn each other of danger with different vocalizations. Vervet monkeys, for example, use one call to indicate that a predator is a snake and another to indicate that it is a large cat or bird. This tells group members where to look and where to escape.

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Animals respond to things in their environment called stimuli (singular: stimulus). A stimulus could be the sight of food, the sound of a predator, or even changes in temperature. These signals from the environment help animals know when to eat, hide, or find shelter.

The sea anemone in Figure 2 never learned to swim away from the sea star, but it still knows to move to safety. This is an example of an innate behavior, sometimes called an instinctive behavior. Innate behaviors are passed from generation to generation without learning.

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Some animals are eusocial, which means they live in complex societies where different members have different jobs. Honey bees are a perfect example - they have queens, worker bees, and drones, all working together to help their colony survive!

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Cultural behavior is behavior that is spread through a population largely through learning, rather than selection. The key to cultural behavior is that the behavior is taught to one generation by another, known as cultural transmission.

The orca shown in the video intentionally beaches itself to hunt seals in the shallow waters. Only orcas in certain parts of the world, and only certain groups, exhibit this behavior. Orcas learn this from their mothers and other members in their group and will teach it to their offspring as long as the behavior is advantageous.

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To survive and reproduce, animals need water, food, and shelter. For many species, this requires individuals to move from one location to another or migrate. Each species has one or more triggers that cue migration. Certain species of birds often migrate from one area to another in a seasonal pattern. Each season brings changes in temperature, availability of food, and length of day.

Some migration cues are biological. In some species, depletion of energy reserves may signal a need to travel to available food sources. In others, changes in hormone levels or reproductive life cycles trigger mass movements. The breeding ritual of the red crabs of Christmas Island starts at the beginning of the rainy season. The crabs must migrate at this time because their eggs must be released in the sea before sunrise during the last quarter phase of the moon.

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Behavioral costs can be measured in terms of energy, risk, and opportunity. Energy costs describe the difference between the energy used in carrying out an activity and the energy used if the individual had done nothing.

Risk costs are the increased chance of being injured or killed by carrying out a certain behavior versus doing nothing.

Opportunity costs result when an animal spends time doing one behavior and loses an opportunity to do a different behavior.

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If a predator approaches an animal suddenly, the stimulus elicits an involuntary, or innate, behavior such as running that is meant to protect the animal. One of the main benefits of an innate behavior is that it increases survivorship, or the number of individuals that survive from one year to the next. This will in turn increase an animal's fitness by natural selection. A behavior will be expressed if its benefits outweigh its costs. So, the benefit of maintaining homeostasis by basking in the sun outweighs the risk cost of a lizard exposing itself to predators. Behaviors that improve an individual's fitness will be passed on to future generations.

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Murmurations are a form of group behavior in which thousands of starlings flock together as shape-shifting clouds. The birds fly together as one, making incredible patterns as the flock twists and turns in the sky. Murmurations are often triggered by the presence of a predator, which is outmaneuvered by the rapid pattern changes.