Here’s a sweet festive season story: a reminder that it’s not only humans who respond to rhythm and music – as some of us have learned observing our animal companions chilling with music, from classical to jazz, rock to country.
According to this ABC story (accompanied by a delightful video of a white cockatoo’s dance moves supplied courtesy of Cell Press), a Charles Sturt University study has documented dance moves unique to cockatoo species. Researchers hope music can be used to improve the wellbeing of birds in captivity. A praiseworthy goal. We may agree that our wild birds should not be in captivity in the first place, not least the gregarious and active parrots and cockatoos but since they are, consider zoos, stimulating engagement with music should help.
The story by regional ABC reporter Coco Veldkamp, draws on a study published in the journal PLOS One that found cockatoos can headbang, body roll and sidestep intentionally to music. In the study, researchers found some cockatoos had their own signature moves, unique to each individual, while other species appeared to favour different styles.
The ABC story reports: “Spontaneous dancing in time to music had only been officially recorded in humans until Snowball, the sulphur-crested cockatoo, went viral for dancing to the Backstreet Boys more than a decade ago. This link offers another cockatoo dancing sequence featuring Snowball the lab cockatoo.
“In 2019, in a Current Biology study, professor of psychology at Tufts University, Aniruddh Patel, and his colleagues explored Snowball’s ability to dance spontaneously, challenging the long-held belief that sophisticated movement to music was uniquely human.
“The study showed that Snowball developed 16 distinct moves without any formal training to dance.…By studying dancing to music in numerous parrots across several species, the new study found 17 new moves.”
The Australian Charles Sturt researchers worked with Major Mitchells cockatoos as well as Sulphur-Crested cockatoos and Galahs at Wagga Wagga zoo. They reported: “One particularly enthusiastic Major Mitchell cockatoo made a total of 257 moves in sequence while listening to a 20-minute loop of The Nights.”
