Parrots Really Can Shake a Tail Feather
Were The Five Du-Tones and their hit song “Shake a Tail Feather” onto something? While it has long been believed that humans are unique in their ability of being capable of spontaneous dance and movement, a recent study reveals that a certain species of parrots might give humans a run for their money when it comes to dance.
Previous research has shown what many bird owners already know; parrots can move their heads up and down and lift their feet to the sound of a musical beat. But few animal species have been observed moving spontaneously to music other than humans. Even monkeys, a close evolutionary relative to humans, lack this ability. Vocal learning has been considered as the reason spontaneous dance-like movements occur in humans and parrots; they both have strong connections between the motor and auditory brain functions. But parrot head bobbing and foot lifting is linked to mating practices and simply walking from A to B, so researchers were not sure whether these movements could be considered spontaneous, like human dance. If more diverse and new movements could be observed in parrots, the vocal-learning theory would be supported, since their brains are unique among birds.
In a recent study, researchers wanted to know if a sulphur-crested cockatoo, a species of parrot, would create spontaneous movements when played music. A parrot named Snowball previously showed the ability to head-bob and foot-stomp to a musical beat, so Snowball was observed in this study as well. Snowball had never been trained by his owner to do any specific movements to any music, so researchers wanted to see if he would produce spontaneous movements to music they played. To measure this, researchers filmed Snowball while playing the songs “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen, and “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper. Each song was played three times each, with a researcher in the room offering verbal encouragement to Snowball, without any rhythmical movement or dancing. Next, the researchers watched the footage and made note of when Snowball showed “dance movements” that were intentional, but weren’t to achieve a goal (like walking).
Results showed that Snowball had fourteen diverse and unique movements, and two movements that were combinations of other movements. All of these movements occurred while Snowball heard “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, while ten of these movements occurred while Snowball heard “Another One Bites the Dust”. Below, here are a video of Snowball exemplifying all of his distinct movements and a table with all sixteen movements and their brief descriptions.
Here’s a video of Snowball demonstrating all 14 of his unique movements.
While Snowballs movements show how parrots and humans can both exhibit spontaneous and diverse movements, they also show differences. While humans dance more continuously, for longer periods, each of Snowball’s movements lasted for less than four seconds each time he performed it. Also, none of Snowball’s movements were the same at the same point in the song during its three repetitions. In other words, no line in either of the songs contained the same dance move throughout all three trials. This is another example of how spontaneous Snowball’s movements were, as Snowball did not rely on musical cues to indicate what movements would be initiated.
There are a few ideas about how parrots like Snowball can have these complex, spontaneous movements. They could learn from human dance and movement; if a parrot can watch human dance, remember it, and exemplify the movements with their own body, it suggests parrots have a unique, complex ability to map movement pattern from viewing it to doing it. On the other hand, Snowball’s movements could be a result of Snowball’s own creativity. This would also be unique, as nonhuman creativity is usually only seen when trying to reach a goal, like obtaining food. Dance is not goal-oriented, and does not provide physical benefit to Snowball, so the reasoning behind it still remains to be seen. Snowball’s dancing might be social; it could be a way to interact with the humans around him in a positive way.
Humans and parrots are now the only animals to show spontaneous and diverse movement. We share vocal learning, social bonding, imitation abilities, complex action sequences, and attention to movements. The more we learn about parrots’ dancing abilities, the more we can learn about why and how we dance, as humans.
Music for Thought: Snowball demonstrated his dance moves during “Another One Bites the Dust” and “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, which are below if you want to take a listen.
Snowball showed all of his movements during “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. Are there features (beat, melody, tempo) of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” that make it more dance-able? Does Snowball simply have a vendetta against Queen?
What song should Snowball dance to next time?
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