King Solomon’s Ring

1952

Karl R. von Frisch (1886–1982), Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989), Niko Tinbergen (1907–1988)

Bees dancing, birds rolling eggs, fish making nests, and ducklings imprinting on a human “mother” are all fascinating contributions of a group of scientists who founded the field of ethology after World War II. Ethologists study fish, birds, insects, and mammals within an evolutionary framework; that is, they want to know how animal behavior is organized and what its function is in helping the animal survive.

In his book King Solomon’s Ring, the first English-language edition of which was published in 1952, Austrian scientist Konrad Lorenz wrote about how he could talk to the animals, as Solomon did. His specialty was the relationship of mothers and their offspring. He discovered that if the first object that a duckling sees within a few hours of hatching is a human, then that person becomes the duckling’s “mother.” The animal has imprinted on the human and will follow him or her anywhere, just as it would a mother duck. Lorenz’s work became very popular in the 1950s and 1960s, as mother-child relationships were of great concern to scientists, politicians, and the public. It was clear that early life experience was crucial in shaping the child.

Dutch ethologist Niko Tinbergen took a different tack by studying a variety of species, but he was best known for his innovative research on the stickleback fish. His research showed the complex chain of events that a male stickleback went through to woo a mate, build a nest, fertilize the roe, and defend the offspring. His message concerned the powerful role of instinct.

It had long been thought that honeybees did not see in color, but ethologist Karl von Frisch convincingly showed that they did. He then extended his work to study the movements of bees after they discovered a source of food. Von Frisch found that bees do different “dances” to indicate the location and distance of food to others in the hive.

These three scientists won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1973 because of ethology’s important implications for health and human society.

SEE ALSO On the Origin of Species (1859), Attachment Theory (1969)

Konrad Lorenz (left) and Nikolaas Tinbergen (right), 1978, from Max Planck Gesellschaft.

Christian Moullec flying with geese in Dahlem, Germany.