Imitation is an advanced behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another’s. Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior.
The desire to understand animals has made ethology a rapidly growing topic, and since the turn of the 21st century, many prior understandings related to diverse fields such as animal communication, personal symbolic name use, animal emotions, animal culture, learning, and even sexual conduct long thought to be well understood, have been modified, as have new fields such as neuroethology.
Finally, imitation is often an important type of learning.

img source

img source

img source

img source

img source

img source

img source

img source