David McFarland is a scientist specialized in the field of animal behavior and more recently the broadening of this understanding to "artificial ethology" and robotics. He was educated at Leighton Park School, the Quaker school at Reading. He later taught at Balliol College Oxford. He is the author of a number of books, including Animal Behaviour: Psychobiology, Ethology, and Evolution, and Companion to Animal Behaviour, published by Oxford University Press. He is also the author of the Dictionary of Animal Behaviour, published by Oxford Paperback Reference in 2006.