Talk:List of abnormal behaviours in animals

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Suggestion for deletion or significant alteration of this topic
Normal-abnormal is an unscientific dichotomy, and the list seems to be highly antropomorphic - or even more precize, antropomorphic from the point of normative people in a western society. Among animals, homoerotics, coprophagia, pica, infanticide and many of the other mentioned behaviours are "normal" i.e. can be observed when the animal is not forcefully kept from doing so. (and much evidence points in the direction that much of this behaviour would also occur in humans if the culture was not against it).

Animals in captivity might act different from this norm - this does not make the behaviour abnormal. For example:, higher rates of infanticide for animals in captivity might be explained by considerations such as a correlation between territory size and pack size - where an animal with insufficient territory might instinctively decide to kill newborn babies to ensure the own survival. It is normal if all conditions are taken into account.

Tentatively, I would look at the dichotomy natural vs. unnatural. So, it would be unnatural for a bear to dance, though heavy training with punishment and reward can cause the bear to do so. But making a list pointing out that dancing is unnatural behaviour of bears, seems superfluous.

Any thoughts?

FreieFF (talk) 15:11, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Wrong movie with ice bear
List of abnormal behaviours in animals: the movie with the ice bear obviously contains wrong material CrisssCrosss (talk) 18:51, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Broodiness: is there evidence of it being abnormal behavior?
This question relates to the article "List of abnormal behaviors in animals" link: []

In this article, we are given a list of abnormal behaviors in animals, and on this list, we see the behavior "Broodiness". The article states that broodiness is "(...) considered abnormal in modern commercial egg-laying hens". The reference to this is the article "The Effect of Certain Groups of Environmental Factors upon the Expression of Broodiness" by William H. Burrows and Theodore C. Byerly (note that the article is from 1937!). I am not able to find any evidence in this scientific article that states that broodiness in modern commercial egg-laying hens (or in any other hens or chickens) is considered abnormal behavior. Is there any reliable reference that actually does investigate broodiness as an abnormal behavior? How can Wikipedia claim that broodiness is an abnormal behavior when there is no scientific evidence on this?

130.225.188.130 (talk) 16:31, 15 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I've removed broodiness from the list. I agree, it is absolutely ridiculous to say that it's considered abnormal in "modern" egg-laying and use a source from 1937 to support this statement. Since the source doesn't support the statement, we can legitimately remove the statement. If anyone wants to put it back in again, they should find a source to support it. I think it likely to be controversial, because it may be argued that broodiness isn't "abnormal" in the common-parlance meaning of "not what you expect"; it's part of the natural behaviour of hens, even if it's undesirable to the egg-producer. This is supposed to be a list of abnormal behaviour, not a list of undesirable behaviour (otherwise we could include the tendency of tigers to eat people). Elemimele (talk) 17:26, 15 February 2022 (UTC)