This ability is believed to be unrelated to the male Eleonora cockatoo's natural courtship display, which is described as "simple and brief" and involves strutting towards the female with crest raised, whilst bobbing and swishing his head in a figure-eight movement and "uttering soft, chattering notes all the while". The results, published in the paper "Investigating the human-specificity of synchronization to music" showed that Snowball was capable of spontaneously dancing to human music and also that he could adjust his movements to match the tempo of the music (albeit to a limited extent), a behavior previously thought only to occur in humans. Snowball's favorite piece of music was played to him at several different tempos and his reactions recorded on video for later analysis. īetween January and May 2008, Patel led research to determine whether or not Snowball was in fact truly synchronizing his body movements to the music (as opposed to simply mimicking or responding to visual clues from humans present in the room at the same time). Patel stated that his "jaw hit the floor" upon seeing the video, comparing the unlikely and contrary-to-accepted-wisdom nature of a cockatoo dancing to human music to that of a "dog reading a newspaper out loud". In an interview with The New York Times, Dr. Iversen of the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, California. In 2008, the YouTube clip featuring Snowball was brought to the attention of Drs. Snowball has also appeared in TV commercials, advertising Loka brand bottled water in Sweden in 2008 and in a Taco Bell advertisement in 2009, dancing to Rupert Holmes' " Escape (The Piña Colada Song)". The video became something of an Internet phenomenon, with over 200,000 views in one week and was featured on the television programs Inside Edition and The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet. Some time later the video was uploaded to YouTube. Shelter owner Irena Schulz was informed of the cockatoo's unusual ability and, after confirming this behavior at first hand, uploaded a video of Snowball's dancing, swaying, and head bobbing to her website. In August 2007, Snowball was relinquished by his previous owner (at least his third) to the Bird Lovers Only bird shelter of Duncan, South Carolina, after the cockatoo became "difficult to manage", following his daughter's departure to college. The owner and his children encouraged this behavior and observed Snowball developing rhythmic foot-lifting gestures, perhaps in imitation of his human companions' arm-lifting gestures. He was observed bobbing his head in time to the Backstreet Boys song, " Everybody (Backstreet's Back)". Snowball's abilities first became apparent after being acquired from a bird show at the age of six by his previous owner. He currently holds the Guinness World Record for most dance moves by a bird. 1996) is a male Eleonora cockatoo, noted as being the first non-human animal conclusively demonstrated to be capable of beat induction: perceiving music and synchronizing his body movements to the beat (i.e. Eleonora cockatoo ( Cacatua galerita eleonora)
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