Confessions on the dance floor: Birds swing to beats

NEW YORK: They wouldn't blow away the competition on Dancing with the Stars, but it turns out that some birds got rhythm.

After studying a cockatoo that grooves to the Backstreet Boys and about 1,000 YouTube videos, scientists say they've documented for the first time that some animals "dance" to a musical beat.

In lab studies of two parrots and close review of the YouTube videos, scientists looked for signs that animals were actually feeling the beat of music they heard. The verdict: Some parrots did. But researchers found no evidence of that for dogs and cats, despite long exposure to people and music.