The electric cockatoo is officially named Snowball, a sulfur-crested cockatoo who spontaneously dances to the Backstreet Boys and Queen. The video was part of a research study on birds who move synchronously with music.National Geographic: Birds Can Dance, Experts (and Zany Videos) Reveal (April 30, 2009)
Dances with Birds
The researchers sought parrots and other birds that seemed to be moving—bobbing their heads and shuffling their feet back and forth—to music. They worked with Snowball, a sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita eleonora), and discovered that the parrot learned to change its movement to match the music, leading them to suppose that dancing in rhythm relies on brain systems for vocal learning.National Geographic: Birds Can Dance, Experts (and Zany Videos) Reveal (April 30, 2009)
Featured Video
Featured Video
References
Fast Facts
-
Two videos
one 1:12 long and one 47 seconds long
-
Fact:
Uploaded by Cell Press Journals, a scientific journal publisher
-
Fact:
Other videos by Cell Press include slime molds, mitosis and capuchins using stone tools
-
Snowball dances at three different tempos
106, 125 and 130 beats per minute (BPM)
-
Fact:
Part of the research involved looking at thousands of YouTube videos which show birds dancing to musicNational Geographic: Birds Can Dance, Experts (and Zany Videos) Reveal (April 30, 2009)
-
Fact:
-
Fact:
