AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Imprinting is the process of making an “imprint” (marking) something or someone. For example, after birth or hatching, the newborn follows another animal that it recognizes or marks as its mother (filial imprinting).

Detailed explanation-2: -A young duckling during the first few hours of life sees the image of its mother and siblings. This gets imprinted in the brain of the duckling and follows them which is essential for its survival.

Detailed explanation-3: -Imprinting: how ducklings recognize and learn to trust their mothers (and siblings) In the first days of life, during what is called a ‘sensitive period, ’ young birds of many species undergo a phenomenon called imprinting (Figure 1).

Detailed explanation-4: -Famously described by zoologist Konrad Lorenz in the 1930s, imprinting occurs when an animal forms an attachment to the first thing it sees upon hatching. Lorenz discovered that newly hatched goslings would follow the first moving object they saw-often Lorenz himself.

Detailed explanation-5: -Lorenz found that geese follow the first moving object they see. This process is known as imprinting, and suggests that attachment is innate and programmed genetically. Lorenz believed that once imprinting has occurred, it cannot be reversed, nor can a gosling imprint on anything else.