In his classic text, The Study of Instinct, the ethologist Tinbergen discusses spinal reflex pathways alongside treatments of signal evolution and comparative methods. Since 1949, when this book was first published, the study of behavior has been allocated to the largely distinct communities of neuroscience and evolutionary biology. As a neuroethology lab, we use the conceptual and empirical skills of these disciplines to contribute to an emerging, synthetic understanding of behavior. Within this broad domain, we study the evolution of reproductive decisions -- particularly how animals recognize and choose among potential mates. We draw on relevant literature from behavioral ecology, evolutionary genetics, cognitive psychology, and behavioral neuroscience. We plan to continue combining molecular neuroscience with field studies to understand how evolution shapes and is shaped by the mechanisms of animal behavior.