Animal cognition Animal cognition Animal cognition describes the mental capacities of non-human animals and the study of those capacities. The field developed from comparative psychology, including the study of animal conditioning and learning. It has also been strongly influenced by research in ethology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary psychology, and hence the alternative name cognitive ethology is sometimes used. Many behaviors associated with the term "animal intelligence" are also subsumed within animal cognition. Researchers have examined animal cognition in mammals (especially primates, cetaceans, elephants, dogs, cats, pigs, horses, cattle, raccoons and rodents), birds (including parrots, fowl, corvids and pigeons), reptiles (lizards and snakes),
Germ-free animal Germ-free animal Germ-free animals are animals that have no microorganisms living in or on them. Such animals are raised within germ-free isolators in order to control their exposure to viral, bacterial or parasitic agents. When known strains of bacteria or microbiota are introduced to a germ-free animal, it usually is referred to as a gnotobiotic animal, however technically speaking, germ-free animals are also gnotobiotic because the status of their microbial community is "known". Germ-free animals are used in the study of probiotic research and other animal research requiring careful control of outside contaminants that can affect the experiment. They also