On Strictly Come Dancing, every year, celebrities of different ages, backgrounds, and levels of skill perform their best dance moves.
However, some of our furry and feathered companions may have a shot at winning the Glitterball Trophy if they utilize moves that are advantageous to them in the wild.
As the lineup for this year’s television dance competition is released.
The capacity of the cockatoo to sustain a beat has led to its study by neuroscientists. Honeybees communicate the location of the freshest blooms through their wiggles.
The handstand of a skunk may appear spectacular, but it is a warning to back away should you get sprayed by something unpleasant.
A chimpanzee conga line would undoubtedly liven up a dull wedding celebration, while the dung beetle’s pirouettes would earn a 10 from Craig Revel Horwood.
Waggling bees
Honeybees are reported to have an extensive repertoire of dance routines that serve various purposes within the hive.
When a bee discovers a patch of flowers, it returns to the honeycomb and performs a figure-of-eight motion to alert its fellow bees.
Aristotle initially observed this, and Nobel Prize-winning zoologist Karl von Frisch examined it in the 1960s.
The waggle dance notifies the bees observing the position of a flower patch and the distance and direction away from the hive.
The dancing bee wiggles back and forth while moving ahead in a straight line, and then dances in a circle.
The length of the center line, known as the waggle run, indicates the approximate distance to the flower patch.
Bees use their knowledge of which direction is up and which is down within their hive to indicate direction.
To accomplish this, bees dance at a certain angle using the waggle run.
Outside of the hive, bees observe the position of the sun and then fly away from it at the same angle they just witnessed.
If the sun were in a different position, the angle would remain the same, but the correct direction of the flower patch would change.
Occasionally, the bee may move in a circle, turn around, and then oppositely walk the same circle.
This indicates to the bees that the flower patch is close to their hive.
It is believed that the duration of this dance determines the quality of the blooms.
Honeybees have also been observed to employ a dance known as shimmering, which resembles a Mexican Wave, to scare off predators.
To protect their hive from smaller predators, such as wasps, they thrust their abdomens at a 90-degree angle into the air.
Apis Dorsata, a honey bee native to South and Southeast Asia, uses it to ward off wasps, hornets, and other predators.
The approach prevents a wasp from fixating on a single bee or attempting to obtain honey from the colony’s hive.
Twerking bears
Bears may not have a particularly sophisticated purpose, but they do have a few dancing skills ready for the dance floor.
Brown bears with an itch they cannot reach have been observed “twerking” against trees to relieve the itch.
Andy Williams took a video of an in British Columbia, Canada, in 2018 show standing on its hind legs while dragging its back up and down a tree.
It then collapses onto all fours and rubs its rear end on the bark in an attempt to scratch a distant itch.
However, wildlife scientists believe that bears rub their thick fur against trees to scent mark a territory, leaving a calling card for other bears.
According to a 2007 study from the University of Cumbria, grizzly bears may use odors to learn more about one other when searching for females.
This familiarity could serve as a deterrent for adult male bears to fight.
Rhythmic cockatoos
Snowball, a cockatoo, went viral in 2009 after a video of him bobbing his head to the Backstreet Boys went viral.
Irina Schulz, the bird’s owner, and scientists from The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego researched the bird in the same year.
They discovered that Snowball was the first non-human animal that could dance to a beat.
In 2019, he was the subject of a second study by scientists from the University of California, San Diego. Later, they saw that he was capable of a wider variety of motions than he had ever been taught.
While listening to 80s hits, the cockatoo came up with 14 new routines on his own while lacking official training.
The researchers believe his “remarkably diversified spontaneous motions” demonstrate that dancing is not unique to humans, but rather a response to music when particular brain circumstances are met.
Analysis of his actions indicated that they were unquestionably deliberate, yet inefficient in accomplishing any reasonable external purpose.
Snowball’s dancing appears to be a social behavior he uses to communicate with human carers (his surrogate flock), according to an article published in Current Biology.
The researchers hypothesized that the natural ability to dance shared by humans and parrots may result from the convergence of five traits: vocal learning, the capacity for nonverbal movement imitation, a propensity to form long-lasting social bonds, the capacity to learn complex sequences of actions, and sensitivity to communicative movements.
Chimpanzee conga
Chimpanzees, like humans, find it difficult to resist the impulse to join a conga line when one goes by.
Psychologists from the University of Warwick investigated a conga-like dance done by two chimpanzees at the Saint Louis Zoo in Missouri, United States.
The duo launched their dance seemingly for no purpose other than an emotional statement.
According to Dr. Adriano Lameira, their coordinated body motions may provide insight into how and why humans began dancing.
According to the researchers, their levels of motor coordination, synchronization, and rhythm were comparable to those of orchestra members playing the same musical piece.
The scientists found in the study that the chimps’ “conga-line” is the “first occurrence of spontaneous whole-body entrainment between two ape peers.”
This suggests that human dance may have originated from mechanisms of social bonding in small groups, which may have provided stress-relieving advantages.
Leaping lemurs
Lemurs have a unique sideways gallop’ that makes them appear to be dancing.
A pair of critically endangered Coquerel’s sifaka lemurs were captured on camera at Chester Zoo last year parading across their enclosure.
Primate Keeper Holly Webb remarked, “When on the ground, Coquerel’s sifaka lemurs run with a beautiful sideways gallop while gracefully holding up their arms for balance; they appear to be dancing.”
The lemurs’ extremely long legs and short arms prevent them from running on all fours.
Their prancing gait lets them go large distances with minimal energy expenditure.
It is believed that by crossing one leg in front of the other, the landing momentum can help generate energy for the subsequent takeoff.
Skunk du Soleil
Do not attempt this at home; the skunk’s dance routines would not be out of place in a troupe on Britain’s Got Talent.
The smelly animal performs an elaborate warning dance consisting of handstands and tail-waving to deter potential attackers before spraying them with foul liquid.
The dance may make them appear larger to a predator, and if the aggressor does not retreat, it will launch a rapid-fire spray attack.
When threatened, the skunk forms a U-shape with its body so that its head and bottom face the aggressor.
This allows the animal to direct an unseen jet of poisonous fluids at a predator approximately 15 feet (5 meters) away.
Before launching an assault, they stomp their feet, lift their tail, hiss, or conduct the warning dance.
Through two ‘nipples’ placed on the sides of the anus, it then emits a pungent, disagreeable odor.
Moonwalking manakins
A certain kind of tropical bird has been observed ‘moonwalking’ to attract the attention of a potential mate; so, he may as well be referred to as the ‘King of Peep’.
The male red-capped Manakin of Mexico and Central America produces a clapping sound by rapidly striking its wings.
The bird will then settle on a branch and moonwalk across it to attract a potential partner.
Scientists have discovered that male manakins have one of the quickest limb muscles ever measured in a vertebrate mammal.
The muscle permits them to make the quick clapping or snapping sound by flapping their wings more than 60 times per second.
Biologists have discovered that the birds flap their wings at more than twice the pace required for flight, suggesting that the muscle has evolved only to help them attract a mate.
Half-relaxation frequencies of the humeral retractor muscle of red-capped manakins were between 80 and 100 Hz.
Shaking spiders
To attract a mate, the male peacock spider performs a distinctive dance routine with his vividly colored abdomen-mounted fan.
The Australian spider will lift its third pair of legs to the sky before MC Hammer-style zigzagging towards the female.
In addition to displaying and vibrating his abdominal fan, he will also clap his legs to catch the attention of a potential partner.
In contrast, females use the dance to determine if a possible mate is powerful enough to become their companion.
Even though they are as little as a grain of rice, the female will kill and consume the male if she deems him unworthy.
Occasionally, the female will murder her spouse after mating to provide nutrition for her young.
The dung beetle performs a pirouette.
Dung beetles are more adept at rhythmic gymnastics than other species, as they would only dance with a manure ball as their selected support.
To transport their meal and keep it safe from predators, they will stand atop the rolled-up dung ball.
They will then do a graceful 360-degree rotation to orient themselves by mentally capturing a “picture” of the sky.
By matching the stored snapshot with the current surroundings, the critter can properly go straight ahead when it begins to roll its excrement.
Sweden’s Lund University employed an artificial starry sky to evaluate the beetle’s navigational abilities.
They were able to control the amount of light and alter the positions of the sun, moon, and stars.
This allowed them to compare how the orientation of the beetles altered according to the position of the celestial bodies.
Other animals and insects utilize the position of celestial bodies to navigate, but dung beetles are unique, according to researcher Basil el Jundi.
They are the only ones who take a photograph in which they acquire information on the positions of several celestial bodies, such as the sun, moon, and stars.
Tap-dancing booby
This bird’s distinctive courting dance is the animal kingdom’s answer to Fred Astaire.
To complete its ritual, the male blue-footed booby will raise one foot at a time, with its wings extended and its head raised, while whistling from its beak.
Its cerulean-colored stompers also contribute to its popularity in attracting females.
The brilliant blue hue is a result of carotenoid pigments that the birds obtain from the fish they consume.
A weaker or sickly bird will have difficulty feeding itself, and its color will be less vibrant, which a potential mate may observe during its dance.
