Humans may have more in common with parrots than chimpanzees due to a shared natural ability to dance, a new study suggests.

A groundbreaking set of observations has shown a pet cockatoo showing off a diverse array of moves while listening to two well-known hits from the 1980s.

Named Snowball, the 12-year-old sulphur-crested bird is shown spontaneously performing a repertoire of 14 moves including the “down-shake”, “body roll” and “downward/head-foot sync”, in time to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

The parrot, who had not been trained or encouraged to dance, also managed 10 separate moves - including “Vogue”, a side-to-side heat tilt synchronised with a foot-lift - while accompanying Another One Bites the Dust.

The footage is fascinating the scientific community because the ability to dance with that degree of flexibility has not previously been recorded elsewhere in the animal kingdom.

This includes in primates such as chimpanzees, the animals genetically closest to humans, which are thought to possess no dancing ability whatsoever.