When a good beat hits your ears, it can be difficult to resist the urge to wiggle your shoulders, bob your head, and shake ya booty.
A drive to dance isn't exclusive to primates; parrots in captivity are also known to spontaneously move their bodies to music.
Researchers have discovered cockatoos (Cacatuidae) have as many as 30 distinct dance moves, including head banging, sidestepping, body rolls, half-turns, and a uniquely avian action called 'fluff.'
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Seventeen of these moves were yet unknown to science.
These were identified from 45 videos on social media of cockatoos dancing to music, and from observations of six cockatoos housed at the Wagga Wagga Zoo in Australia. The zoo cockies, representing three species, were played music, an audio podcast, and no audio, but they all busted some moves regardless of the DJ's selection.
"We conclude that dance behavior in cockatoos is composed of a wide range of different movements and further research would be beneficial to determine if music can trigger dance in captive birds and serve as a form of environmental enrichment," writes Charles Sturt University zoologist Natasha Lubke and her colleagues.
One bird had a particularly avant-garde style, with 17 of its own moves not performed by any other birds. The rest of the birds expressed their personal flair through different combinations of the 30 moves.
It's still unclear why cockatoos dance, but the same could be said of humans.
The researchers think the captive parrots' dancing abilities might be the remnants of courtship rituals, repurposed to entertain themselves and their owners.
"The similarities with human dancing make it hard to argue against well-developed cognitive and emotional processes in parrots, and playing music to parrots may improve their welfare," says ethologist Rafael Freire, also from Charles Sturt University.
"Further research would be beneficial to determine if music can trigger dance in captive birds and serve as a form of environmental enrichment."
This research was published in PLOS One.