With the rising applications of robots in unstructured real-world environments, roboticists are increasingly concerned with the problems posed by the complexity of such environments. One solution to these problems is robot autonomy. Since nature has already solved the problem of autonomy it can be a suitable model for developing autonomous robots. This paper presents a concise review on robot autonomy from the perspective of animal behaviour. It examines some state-of-the-art techniques as well as suggesting possible research directions.