List of abnormal behaviours in animals
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Abnormal behaviour in animals can be defined in several ways. Statistically, abnormal is when the occurrence, frequency or intensity of a behaviour varies
statistically significant In statistical hypothesis testing, a result has statistical significance when it is very unlikely to have occurred given the null hypothesis (simply by chance alone). More precisely, a study's defined significance level, denoted by \alpha, is the p ...
ly, either more or less, from the normal value. This means that theoretically, almost any behaviour could become abnormal in an individual. Less formally, 'abnormal' includes any activity judged to be outside the normal behaviour pattern for animals of that particular class or age. For example, infanticide may be a normal behaviour and regularly observed in one species, however, in another species it might be normal but becomes 'abnormal' if it reaches a high frequency, or in another species it is rarely observed, and any incidence is considered 'abnormal'. This list does not include one-time behaviours performed by individual animals that might be considered abnormal for that individual, unless these are performed repeatedly by other individuals in the species and are recognised as part of the
ethogram An ethogram is a catalogue or inventory of behaviours or actions exhibited by an animal used in ethology. The behaviours in an ethogram are usually defined to be mutually exclusive and objective, avoiding subjectivity and functional inference as ...
of that species. Most abnormal behaviours can be categorised collectively (e.g., eliminative, ingestive, stereotypies), however, many abnormal behaviours fall debatedly into several of these categories and categorisation is therefore not attempted in this list. Some abnormal behaviours may be related to environmental conditions (e.g. captive housing) whereas others may be due to medical conditions. The list does not include behaviours in animals that are genetically modified to express abnormal behaviour (e.g. reeler mice).


List

* Abnormal sexual behaviour; various types. * Activity anorexia; a condition where animals exercise excessively while simultaneously reducing their food intake. * Adjunctive behaviour; an activity reliably accompanying another response that has been produced by a stimulus, especially when the stimulus is presented according to a temporally defined schedule. *Barbering, or fur and whisker trimming; removing the whiskers or fur of another animal. *
Cannibalism Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, b ...
; eating the flesh or internal organs of another animal of the same species. * Chronic egg laying; laying an abnormal number of infertile eggs, or clutches of eggs in the absence of a mate, to the detriment of a bird's health. Particularly common in pet parrots. *
Coprophagia Coprophagia () or coprophagy () is the consumption of feces. The word is derived from the grc, κόπρος , "feces" and , "to eat". Coprophagy refers to many kinds of feces-eating, including eating feces of other species (heterospecifics), o ...
; eating faeces. * Cribbing or crib-biting; grabbing a solid object such as a fence with the incisors, arching the neck, pulling against the object, and sucking in air. * Depression; behaviours associated with a state of low mood and aversion to activity. *
Excessive vocalisation Excess may refer to: * Angle excess, in spherical trigonometry * Insurance excess, similar to a deductible * Excess, in chemistry, a reagent that is not the limiting reagent * "Excess", a song by Tricky from the album '' Blowback'' * ''Excess'' ( ...
; vocalising more frequently than expected. * Excessive aggression; aggressive acts that are more frequent or of greater intensity than expected. * Excessive/submissive urination (polyuria); urinating more frequently than expected or under conditions where it would not be expected * Excessive licking; excessive licking of the floor, wall or other environmental features. *
Fainting Syncope, commonly known as fainting, or passing out, is a loss of consciousness and muscle strength characterized by a fast onset, short duration, and spontaneous recovery. It is caused by a decrease in blood flow to the brain, typically from ...
; a transient loss of consciousness and postural tone, characterized by rapid onset, short duration, and spontaneous recovery. * Feather pecking; one
bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...
repeatedly pecking or pulling at the feathers of another. *
Feather-plucking Feather-plucking, sometimes termed feather-picking, feather damaging behaviour or pterotillomania, is a maladaptive, behavioural disorder commonly seen in captive birds that chew, bite or pluck their own feathers with their beak, resulting in d ...
(pterotillomania); birds chewing, biting or plucking their own feathers with their beak, resulting in damage to the feathers and occasionally the skin. * Forced moulting; commercial egg-laying hens losing their feathers due to the deliberate removal of food and water for several days. *
Geophagia Geophagia (), also known as geophagy (), is the intentional practice of eating earth or soil-like substances such as clay, chalk, or termite mounds. It is a behavioural adaptation that occurs in many non-human animals and has been documented in ...
; eating soil or sand. * Herbivory in carnivorous animals; eating plant material by an animal that is considered to usually be meat-eating. *
Infanticide Infanticide (or infant homicide) is the intentional killing of infants or offspring. Infanticide was a widespread practice throughout human history that was mainly used to dispose of unwanted children, its main purpose is the prevention of reso ...
; killing of young offspring by a mature animal of its own species. *
Learned helplessness Learned helplessness is the behavior exhibited by a subject after enduring repeated aversive stimuli beyond their control. It was initially thought to be caused by the subject's acceptance of their powerlessness, by way of their discontinuing atte ...
; failing to respond even though there are opportunities for the animal to help itself by avoiding unpleasant circumstances or by gaining positive rewards. *
Lignophagia Lignophagia is the List of abnormal behaviours in animals, abnormal behaviour of chewing and eating wood. It has been recorded in several species, but perhaps most commonly in horses where it is usually called, simply, "wood chewing". Lignophagia ...
; eating wood. *
Obsessive–compulsive disorder Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental and behavioral disorder in which an individual has intrusive thoughts and/or feels the need to perform certain routines repeatedly to the extent where it induces distress or impairs general ...
; a specific, unnecessary action or series of actions that is repeated more often than would normally be expected. *
Osteophagy Osteophagy is the practice in which animals, usually herbivores, consume bones. Most vegetation around the world lacks sufficient amounts of phosphate. Phosphorus is an essential mineral for all animals, as it plays a major role in the formation o ...
; chewing or eating bones. * Pica; eating materials other than normal food. *
Polydipsia Polydipsia is excessive thirst or excess drinking.Porth, C. M. (1990). ''Pathophysiology: Concepts of altered health states''. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company. The word derives from the Greek () "very thirsty", which is derived from (, "mu ...
; excessive drinking. *
Savaging Savaging is a term used in the study of ethology that refers to aggressive behaviour displayed by the mother towards the offspring. Aggressive behaviour includes being rough with, injuring, biting, attacking, crushing and killing (maternal infa ...
; overt aggression directed to newborn offspring by a mother animal, often including cannibalistic infanticide. *
Self-cannibalism Self-cannibalism is the practice of eating oneself, also called autocannibalism, or autosarcophagy. A similar term which is applied differently is '' autophagy'', which specifically denotes the normal process of self-degradation by cells. While alm ...
(autophagy, autosarcophagy); an animal eating itself. *
Self-injury Self-harm is intentional behavior that is considered harmful to oneself. This is most commonly regarded as direct injury of one's own skin tissues usually without a suicidal intention. Other terms such as cutting, self-injury and self-mutilatio ...
; an animal injuring its own body tissues. * Sham or "vacuum" dustbathing;
dustbathing Dust bathing (also called sand bathing) is an animal behavior characterized by rolling or moving around in dust, dry earth or sand, with the likely purpose of removing parasites from fur, feathers or skin. Dust bathing is a maintenance behavior ...
in the absence of appropriate substrate. *
Stable vices Stable vices are stereotypies of equines, especially horses. They are usually undesirable habits that often develop as a result of being confined in a stable with boredom, hunger, isolation, excess energy, or insufficient exercise. They present ...
; stereotypies of
equines ''Equus'' , is a genus of mammals in the family (biology), family Equidae, which includes horses, donkeys, and zebras. Within the Equidae, ''Equus'' is the only recognized Extant taxon, extant genus, comprising seven living species. Like Equida ...
, especially
horses The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...
. *
Stereotypy (non-human) In animal behaviour, stereotypy, stereotypical or stereotyped behaviour has several meanings, leading to ambiguity in the scientific literature. A stereotypy is a term for a group of phenotypic behaviours that are repetitive, morphologically i ...
; repeated, relatively invariant behaviours with no apparent purpose (multiple types). * Stress/anxiety; behaviours associated with being exposed to a stressor (e.g. loss of appetite, social withdrawal). * Stone chewing; chewing stones or rocks without swallowing them. * Tail biting; biting or chewing the tail of another animal. *
Tail chasing Tail chasing is a behaviour exhibited in dogs that is characterized by spinning in tight circles in either direction, and can be slow and focused on the tail or fast and unfocused. It is a compulsion similar to those seen in humans suffering from ...
; an animal chasing its own tail in circles. *
Toe pecking Toe pecking, an abnormal behaviour of birds in captivity, occurs when one bird pecks the toes of another using its beak. This behaviour has been reported in hens and ostriches.Bubier N.E., Deeming, C. and Ayres L.L. (1996). Behaviour of ostric ...
; one bird pecking the toes of another. *
Trichotillomania Trichotillomania (TTM), also known as hair-pulling disorder or compulsive hair pulling, is a mental disorder characterized by a long-term urge that results in the pulling out of one's own hair. A brief positive feeling may occur as hair is remov ...
; an animal pulling out its own fur, hair or wool, often followed by eating it. * Urine drinking; drinking urine. *
Vacuum activity Vacuum activities (or vacuum behaviours) are innate, fixed action patterns (FAPs) of animal behaviour that are performed in the absence of a sign stimulus ( releaser) that normally elicit them. This type of abnormal behaviour shows that a key stim ...
;
innate {{Short pages monitor