” It seems that vocal imitation and the sense of rhythm have the same neurological bases, ” concludes Adena Schachner in the online magazine Science. All but one because the team also selected an Asian elephant… However, we know of one of these pachyderms, described in 2005, which was able to imitate the sound of a truck. Adena Schachner and her colleagues have retained only a few cases where the animal seems to actually adapt its movements to the rhythm of the music.Īll of these non-human dancers were imitation specialists, essentially parrots. There are indeed all kinds of dogs, cats, chimpanzees …īut their gestures do not stand up to close analysis. The team then reviewed a thousand videos posted on YouTube showing animals dancing. She and her colleagues demonstrated that, like Snowball, Alex was very good at dancing to the beat. This work inspired another, released simultaneously in the same publication.Īdena Schachner, a behavioral scientist at Harvard University, first became interested in Alex, an African Gray Parrot who is very good at sound mimicry. The researcher observed the bird’s behavior extensively and describes his analysis in the journal current biology. The cockatoo dances to the music and tunes his movements to the tempo, measured here in BPM, which could be translated as beats per minute. He, therefore, coordinates his movements with the music. Cockatoo speeds up or slows down accordingly. If the cockatoo is just moving mechanically when it hears music, the change in rhythm will have no effect on its gestures. Watching Snowball the cockatoo dance to Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust has long been one of the joys of the internet. His favorite song was played to him with varying tempos. The neurobiologist subjected the bird to a more difficult exercise. We wanted to know more about Cockatoo and contacted its owners, who live in the United States, in Illinois. If this hypothesis is correct, it could be interesting to take a closer look at parrots and other cockatoos which, precisely, are particularly good at imitations. In recent work, this researcher had put forward the hypothesis that this gift that cockatoo have for dancing to music is linked to their ability to imitate sounds and, more precisely, that there must be a particular link between the auditory systems and motor. Cockatoos are known for their complex behavior and antics when first made pets.īut from there to dance… A neurobiologist at the Neurosciences Institute of San Diego (California), Aniruddh Patel discovered with amazement the prowess of this crested cockatoo ( Cacatua galerita Eleonora ). A study of YouTube star Snowball the cockatoo suggests humans may not be the only ones who can groove to a beat. Irena Schulz, YouTube Snowball the cockatoo got Internet famous in the late 2000s when a video of him dancing to the beat of. The effect is striking, giving the impression that the parrot is actually following the rhythm of the song. Snowball, the dancing cockatoo, has at least 14 distinct dance moves. The bird fidgets and kicks its feet to the tune of Everybody, a song by the Backstreet Boys. Cockatoo dancing feats were hugely successful.
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