Amotz Zahavi

Amotz Zahavi was born in 1928 in Petah Tikva

Zahavi was born in Petah Tikva in 1928 and went to the Ahad Ha'am school there. At 12 he met Heinrich Mendelssohn, who deepened his interest in nature and later guided his studies.

In 1947 he began a bachelor's degree in biology at the Hebrew University. After the War of Independence he joined a geological survey of the Negev, then did a master's degree with research in the Hula swamp. His doctorate dealt with the winter behavior of the white wagtail in Israel.

In 1953 he and Azaria Alon founded the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, and he served for years as its secretary. He headed the Institute for Nature Conservation Research at Tel Aviv University from its founding in 1965 until 1984. He began teaching at Tel Aviv University and studying Arabian babblers at Hatzeva.

In 1975 he published the handicap principle, which explains costly traits as signals shaped by sexual selection. He wrote on it with his wife, biologist Avishag Zahavi, whom he married in 1954. In 1973 he and Peter Ward proposed the information centre hypothesis on communal bird roosts.

After retiring he was professor emeritus and ran the Hatzeva field school. He lived in Hatzeva, died on 12 May 2017, and was buried there.