Nikolaas Tinbergen

1907-1988

Zoologist from the Netherlands who conducted a wide range of animal-behavior studies, and is credited as a founder of the field of ethology, the systematic study of the function and evolution of behavior.

Tinbergen is widely recognized for his studies of behavioral patterns and the individual environmental triggers, or "releasers,"that cause specific actions in organisms. He, Konrad Lorenz, and Karl von Frisch jointly accepted the Nobel Prize in 1973 for their work in animal behavior.