<
https://theconversation.com/body-rolls-and-headbanging-we-found-cockatoos-have-30-different-dance-moves-262427>
"Companion cockatoos are renowned for their problem-solving and intriguing
characters. It’s no surprise these large, long-lived and intelligent parrots
are known to display complex behaviour.
Owners often film their birds dancing to music and post the videos to social
media. Snowball, a famous dancing cockatoo, has been shown to have 14 different
dance moves.
We wanted to find out more about the dance repertoire of cockatoos and why they
might be doing this. In our new research, we examined videos of dance behaviour
and played dance music to six cockatoos at an Australian zoo.
These birds weren’t just doing a side step or bobbing up and down. Between
them, they had a rich repertoire of at least 30 distinct moves. Some birds
coordinated their head bobbing with foot movements, while others undertook body
rolls. Our research shows at least 10 of the 21 cockatoo species dance.
If we saw this behaviour in humans, we would draw a clear link between music
and dancing and interpret the behaviour as enjoyable. After watching cockatoos
voluntarily begin dancing for reasonable lengths of time, it was difficult to
reach any conclusion other than cockatoos most likely dance because it’s fun."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
