Press Releases

Digitizing the Dance of a Hip Hop Bird

Video revolutionizes study of little-known birds

December 6, 2006

When it comes time to win mates, a mysterious bird from New Guinea performs a tough act to follow. After clearing a stage on the forest floor and laying down a mat of fungi, the male might do a Hop and Shake, Head-shake Walk, or Ballerina Dance, in which he flares out his feathers dramatically, resembling a tutu. These are just a few of the dances he performs to impress a female, along with rhythmic vocalizations, wing rattling, and enhancements such as iridescent plumage and wire-like feathers protruding from his head. This courtship display is one of the most complex in the animal kingdom and, until now, was rarely witnessed.

Biologist Edwin Scholes described these displays for the first time in the October issue of the scientific journal, The Auk—and captured video footage that anyone can view online through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library, a multimedia "museum" of animal behavior.

Greg Budney, acting director of the Macaulay Library, said the study is exciting, not only because it describes the little-known rituals of Carola's Parotia bird-of-paradise, but because it is the first ever example of how animal behavior can be preserved as video "voucher specimens" that are fully archived in a museum and accessible online. "We are at a technological crossroads," Budney said. "In the past, researchers described the behavior of animals in publications, but in no case did others have ready access to actually see them."

Scholes recorded the Carola's Parotia bird-of-paradise in the remote mountains of central New Guinea. Although most of the 40 species of birds-of-paradise have bizarre and complicated mating rituals, Scholes said the Carola's Parotia may have the most complex one of all. An exacting architect, the male first selects a display area, clears it of debris, lays down a mat of fungal material, and decorates it with objects such as brightly colored leaves, mammal fur, and snakeskin.

As females perch nearby, peering down or over their shoulders or between their legs to watch the male, he performs his intricate dance. Samples of each behavior are now archived in the Macaulay Library's collection, along with some 18,000 other video clips of animal behavior. "The Macaulay Library is a wonderful resource because it makes it much easier for both the public and scientists to interpret the complex courtship behaviors I'm describing," Scholes says. "And importantly, these rare behaviors will be preserved for future scientists to study again, or maybe someday, reinterpret in a new light."

Eventually Scholes hopes to use video to document and archive the behaviors of dozens of bird- of-paradise species. His goal is to determine how complex behaviors and plumages evolved from the crow-like ancestor that all birds-of-paradise have in common.

To view video clips of Carola's Parotia bird-of-paradise, visit http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/paradise. To explore the Macaulay Library's multimedia museum of animal behavior, including more than 80,000 sound and video recordings, visit www.animalbehaviorarchive.org.

Edwin Scholes is a visiting fellow at the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates, housed in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. Learn more about his work on birds of paradise at www.thebirdsofparadise.org.