5 Aussie Animals Caught Dancing (Gallery)

From The Nature Conservancy, from Care2

The Nature Conservancy has collaborated with partners to protect more than six million hectares of land in Australia. We’re very serious about protecting land for people and nature, but sometimes even we need to take a step back and have a laugh. With this in mind, we present Animal Dance Party—a light, fun look at the Australian critters we love so much getting down.

I’d say these kangaroo friends know a thing or two about dub stepping! Who wants more bass?

Partner dancing from the fairy penguins isn’t always easy at first–maybe these two need a little Marvin Gaye to set the tone?

Now throw your –errr, hands?–in the air, starfish, and wave them like you just don’t care!

Strike a pose, seagulls, there’s nothing to it—vogue!

Take some advice from this little guy–check out more images of some of Australia’s finest gettin’ funky!

Photo credits:

Kangeroos  © hmorandell/flickr

Fairy penguins © Daniel Pietzsch/flickr

Seagulls © Micheal Dawes/flickr

Starfish © dark_mephi/flickr

Possum © Wollombi/flickr

For more on this story go to:

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/its-an-australian-dance-party.html

Related story:

Sea lions can dance, study shows

From  Ann Pietrangelo, Care2

A California sea lion is groovin’ to the beat, bobbing her head in time with the music. It’s the first empirical evidence of an animal incapable of vocal mimicry that can keep the beat, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

The three-year-old sea lion, named Ronan, demonstrated her abilities in six individual experiments led by doctoral candidate Peter Cook at the Long Marine Lab at UCSC. Ronan’s skills showed improvement through the progression of experiments and was able to successfully keep the beat in a follow-up test held weeks later.

Study authors suggest their findings challenge current scientific theories that an animal’s ability to synchronize its movements with sound are associated with the same brain mechanisms that allow for vocal mimicry in humans and some birds such as cockatoos, parrots, and budgerigars.

The findings were published online April 1 in APA’s Journal of Comparative Psychology at http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/com/index.aspx

For more on this story and to watch the video go to: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/sea-lion-grooves-to-the-beat-video.html#ixzz2QuqjOiTh