Watch Snowball the Cockatoo Become World's First Bird to Teach Itself to Dance

July 10, 2019

(KNX) - Snowball the cockatoo knows how to move! He's taught himself 14 dance moves, and he's not afraid to show the world how it's done.

Researchers say the bird and his relatives are the world's first non-humans to hold a beat.

“It helps show that this is a more complex cognitive ability than we had even first imagined,” Aniruddh D. Patel, a cognitive scientist at Tufts University and an author of the study on Snowball, told The Washington Post.

Patel tells KNX that Snowball's dancing actually tells us a lot about human/animal evolution and the complexity of the connection between the brain and music.

The study indicates that although some animals can be trained to do tricks, Snowball is actually enjoying the music and creating his dance moves on his own.

“Snowball developed this behavior spontaneously,” Patel told the Post. “He was never given a food reward for any of this. He was never taught to make dance moves.”

Snowball lives at the Bird Lovers Only Rescue Service Inc., in Duncan SC.