Just come across this interesting video the other day..
which is an except from this TED talk : Frans de Waal: Moral behavior in animals
Archive for the ‘animal behaviour’ Category
It is fair to say that there is still so much to learn about animal behaviour. 
From Smithsonian.com
The test hens responded more quickly to the tidbitting males that had the normal or stationary wattles, less quickly to the one with the extra floppy wattle (….) and slowest to the male lacking wattles. After the hen’s attention was gained, though, she reacted about the same to each of the four animated chickens. Smith suggests that the wattle helps a rooster gain a hen’s attention when he is tidbitting, rather like a human guy wearing flashy clothes while doing his best dance moves to try and pick up chicks.
Why do we laugh? Is there any evolutionary significance? Well, instead of pondering about these questions… why not tickle a primate to find it out?
Humans aren’t the only ones who like it in the armpit. Our fellow great apes — orangutans, chimps, bonobos and gorillas — also squeal in response to tickling, and new research shows this behavior may be the evolutionary root of human laughter.
….
Laughter is a key component of social interaction in humans. Humans are 30 times more likely to laugh when in the company of other humans than not, and tickling is inherently social — no animal is capable of tickling itself. Understanding the origins of laughter can also lend insight to the evolution of language, as both behaviors involve breath control and vocal cord vibrations.
References
Human Laughter Echoes Chimp Chuckles [Wired]
Ross MD, Owren MJ, Zimmermann E. Reconstructing the Evolution of Laughter in Great Apes and Humans. 2009 June [Current Biology]
A scientific research paper can start with a viral video on youtube. A while ago a cockatoo called Snowball was shown to dance to music.
Interesting questions were raised by this observation. Did the bird really dance to the music or did it mimic the human action? Dancing is a complex behaviour that requires coordination of auditory and motor responses. It has been predicted that the neural circuity evolved in vocal learning species. Motivated by this video, a group of scientists decide to test this out by observing how Snowball dances, and here is the quick result.
The short answer is Snowball can really dance to the music! The whole study was published in Current Biology.
Now the question is, why do animals and humans can both enjoy music? In other words, what is unique about music that can stimulate the nervous systems of different species the same way? What is the common neuro-architecture that underlies this behavior?
Reference
Patel AD, Iversen JR, Bregman MR, Schulz I. Experimental Evidence for Synchronization to a Musical Beat in a Nonhuman Animal. Curr Biol. 2009 Apr 29. [PubMed][Current Biology]