who were the first to discover or alter the study of animal behavior

The study of animal behavior, scientifically known as ethology, traces its roots to several key figures from the 17th to 19th centuries, including British naturalists John Ray and Charles Darwin, and the French naturalist Charles LeRoy. Charles Darwin, particularly through his 1859 book "On the Origin of Species" and subsequent works, played a foundational role by explaining how behaviors, like anatomical traits, can evolve through natural selection, shifting the perspective toward behavior as an adaptive biological trait. In the 20th century, ethology developed as a distinct discipline thanks to pioneers like Konrad Lorenz, Nikolaas Tinbergen, and Karl von Frisch. These scientists conducted extensive naturalistic observations and experiments on animals such as birds, insects, and mammals, aiming to understand behavioral patterns in an evolutionary and ecological context. Lorenz contributed notably to the study of instinctive behaviors and imprinting, Tinbergen to experimental ethology and the development of methods to study animal behavior scientifically, and von Frisch to understanding animal communication, especially in bees. Together, they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973 for their foundational work in ethology. Before the formal establishment of ethology, Ivan Pavlov and others explored animal behavior from a psychological perspective, studying learning and reflexes primarily in controlled laboratory settings. The "return to nature" approach by Lorenz, Tinbergen, and colleagues marked a shift back to observing behavior in natural environments, enriching the understanding of animal behavior as adaptive and biologically significant. Thus, the first to discover or significantly alter the study of animal behavior include early naturalists like Darwin and John Ray, but the formal scientific study of animal behavior as ethology was founded by Lorenz, Tinbergen, and von Frisch in the mid-20th century.