ethologist vs animal scientist

ethologist and animal scientist both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
ethologist	Yes	No	No	No
animal scientist	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, animal scientist is a hypernym of ethologist; that is, animal scientist is a word with a broader meaning than ethologist:

ethologist: a zoologist who studies the behavior of animals in their natural habitats
animal scientist: a specialist in the branch of biology dealing with animals

Other hypernyms of ethologist include zoologist.

ethologist (noun)	animal scientist (noun)
a zoologist who studies the behavior of animals in their natural habitats	a specialist in the branch of biology dealing with animals