Table 3.

Treatment of potential behaviours by eight published definitions, survey results and our definition

Definitions: Abbreviated	Definition number from text	1. Ants not breeding	2. Sponge pumps	3. Spider builds	4. Rabbit grows fur	5. Stomata close	6. Plant moves leaves	7. Heart beats after nightmare	8. Sweat in hot air	9. Beetle in current	10. Rat dislikes salt	11. Decide to do nothing	12. Horse grows arthritic	13. Mouse in space	14. Algae swim	15. Frog orbits sun	16. Geese fly in V formation	17. Dog salivates	18. Zebra herds fluctuate	19. Chameleon changes colour	20. Cat produces insulin
The total movements made by the intact animal	1	-	+	+	-	-	-	-	-	+	-	-	-	-	-	+	?	-	?	-	-
Visible activity of animal in response to ext. or int. conditions	2	+	+	+	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	?	+	?	+	-
Response to ext. and int. stimuli, genetic basis and subject to natural selection	3	?	-	+	+	-	-	-	+	-	-	?	-	-	-	-	+	+	+	+	+
Anything observable an organism does in response to stimuli	4	?	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	-	-	-	?	+	+	?	+	?	+	?
Responses to stimuli	5	?	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	-	+	+	-	+	+	?	+	?	+	+
What an animal does	6	?	+	+	+	-	-	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	-	+	?	+	?	+	+
What an animal does + plants	7	?	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	?	+	?	+	+
Measurable responses by the animal	8	?	+	+	?	-	-	+	+	-	-	?	-	-	-	-	?	+	?	+	+
Survey Results		64	74	97	13	38	48	34	24	05	66	81	06	11	78	10	99	75	96	57	14
Our definition		+	+	+	-	-	+	?	-	-	-	-	-	-	+	-	+	+	+	+	-

The symbols +, -, ? signify acceptance, rejection, or uncertainty respectively regarding these examples. The survey approval ratings (%) are from the questionnaire responses received from 174 behavioural biologists (Table 1). See the text for a full description of potential behavioural phenomena, and for full definitions and sources. The final row gives the treatment of each phenomenon by our proposed new definition.