Squawker on the Dancefloor: Cockatoos busting out 30 moves

Sydney Morning Herald

4 days ago

The headbang, body roll, foot lift and sidestep – cockatoos can bust out some serious dance moves, Australian researchers have found.
Scientists from Charles Sturt University analysed 45 social media videos of cockatoos dancing, from which they identified 17 new dance steps and a total of 30 distinct moves. These dancing behaviours were present in both companion birds and captive birds.
The research team also observed dancing behaviour in six cockatoos across three species kept at Wagga Wagga Zoo. These captive cockatoos were seen dancing both with and without music playing, and some even performed their own individual dance moves by combining several moves in unique ways.
Primary supervisor of the study Rafael Freire said the similarities observed in the dancing behaviour of cockatoos and humans suggests the presence of well-developed cognitive and emotional processes in the birds.
'When you look at the cognitive processes that you need to dance to music, the recognition, the synchronising motor movements to a certain rhythmic beat, the brain processes required in that interpretation and that control are quite sophisticated,' Freire, a professor in animal behaviour and welfare, said.
'So far, the only clear evidence of somebody other than a human being able to do this, what we call entrainment, is chimpanzees can seem to clap to a rhythm... It's only early days, but we already know parrots are very good at problem-solving and are very clever in a lot of measures, and this may be another indicator of their cleverness.'
The most commonly observed moves included sidestepping, body rolls, headbanging and the 'footlift' and 'turn'.
Some species of parrots have been observed dancing to music in captivity, but before this study, spontaneous dancing in time to music had only ever been reported in parrots and humans.