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Wild Things:
Life as We Know It
Whale of a comeback, dancing cockatoos, sticky bees, and waltzing pond scum
By Amanda Bensen, Joseph Caputo, T.A. Frail, Laura Helmuth and Abigail Tucker
Smithsonian magazine, July 2009
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(Irena Schulz)
Name: Snowball, a sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita eleonara).
Moves: Bobs head, lifts leg to the tune of the Backstreet Boys' "Everybody."
Discovered: On YouTube. By scientists who then studied the bird's behavior. Analyzed: When the tempo of the music changed, the bird changed the pace of his head bobbing and leg lifting accordingly. Writing in Current Biology, the scientists call this "moving in rhythmic synchrony with a musical beat." Others call it dancing.
Not Alone: A second analysis, in the same journal, of more than 1,000 animal videos on YouTube suggests that other animals that learn through vocal mimicry—songbirds, seals, elephants, some bats and others—may have the same ability.
Learn more about the sulphur-crested cockatoo at the Encyclopedia of Life.
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Volvox Dancing the "Minuet" and the "Waltz"
Single-celled algae colonies cross-fertilize in two different types of movement
Bobbing to the Backstreet Boys
Snowball the cockatoo bobs his head and lifts his leg to the beats of the Backstreet Boys' "Everbody"
Comments
Everyone in our flock LOVES SNOWBALL!!
Posted by Chris on July 8,2009 | 02:47PM
How can something be single-celled and made out of a colony of cells(multi-cellular)?
Posted by Ben on July 13,2009 | 07:14AM
I've sent Snowball dancing to my 2 greatgranddaughters and they loved him.
Posted by Elaine B on August 12,2009 | 08:32PM