![]() ![]() In his lab, Patel showed that Snowball could alter the tempo of his moves as the music he listened to sped up or slowed down. Over the next six years, the man and his daughter danced with the bird using “pronounced arm gestures”. Snowball’s owner has bought him at a bird show at the age of 6 and noticed that the rhythmic cockatoo would bob his head along to the Backstreet Boys. Snowball himself came to Patel’s attention after the young scientist saw the parrot on YouTube. Indeed, after searching YouTube for videos of dancing animals, Schachner only found evidence of moving to beats (a talent known as “entrainment”) among 15 species that practice vocal learning – 14 parrots and the Asian elephant. To do this, animals need to have excellent coordination between their sense of hearing and their motor functions. Before Alex’s recent death, Adena Schachner from Harvard University (working with Alex’s keeper, the renowned parrot psychologist Irene Pepperberg) found that he could also match Snowball’s bopping.īoth groups of researchers believe that the parrots’ dancing skills depend on a talent for “ vocal learning” – the ability to mimic the sounds of other individuals. Aniruddh Patel from San Diego’s Neurosciences Institute found evidence of Snowball’s excellent rhythm under laboratory conditions. Snowball and his feathered friend Alex ( the late, famous African grey parrot) could change all of that. Other animals may produce periodic sounds or perform complex dances, but sensing and moving in time to complex rhythms is a different matter. After all, domesticated animals like dogs and cats don’t do it, and they spend their time with humans and have been exposed to our music for thousands of years. People who’ve attended parties at scientific events may question the ability of humans to move to a beat, but it’s a fairly universal skill and one that many people thought was unique to our species. ![]() He is one of two parrots that are leading a dance dance revolution, by showing that the human behaviour of moving in time to music (even really, really bad music) is one that’s shared by other animals. If it speeds up or slows down, his rhythm does too. As the music plays, Snowball bobs his head and taps his feet in perfect time with it. He’s known for his penchant for grooving to music, notably Everybody by the Backstreet Boys. Snowball, the sulphur-crested cockatoo, is an internet superstar. ![]()
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