From Queen’s Brian May to Professor Brian Cox, some of the world’s greatest scientific minds are also musical.
Now a biologist from Brazil wants to join such esteemed names – with a funky tune about kangaroos.
Dr. Weliton Menário Costa, a kangaroo expert at the Australian National University in Canberra, has won a competition to convey his PhD through song and dance.
His new song ‘Kangaroo Time (Club Edit)’ has been listened to more than 7,000 times on Spotify and is apparently already a hit in the nightclubs down under.
The music video stars Dr. Costa and a series of exotic dancers do their best to mimic the movements of the famous marsupial.
Dr. Weliton Menário Costa holds a PhD from the Australian National University (ANU) and has been described as one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of kangaroo behavior.
‘Dance your PhD’ is an annual competition in which researchers around the world are tasked with explaining their PhD in the simplest terms through song and dance.
“For me, winning this competition is equivalent to winning the Eurovision Song Contest,” said Dr. Costa, who as a musical artist goes by the name WELI.
‘I think it’s extremely important that we celebrate diversity and making a video explaining the kangaroo’s personality was an excellent medium for me to do this.’
The song “Kangaroo Time (Club Edit)” features bongos, strings and saxophone blasts, all driven by a pounding, fast beat.
There are few lyrics, apart from an oft-repeated phase from Dr. Costa: “I hope you don’t mind some of the things I learned from my kangaroo days.”
The video – filmed at Grasslands Nature Reserve in Canberra – features a range of dancers interpreting kangaroo movements and behaviours, from samba dancers, drag queens and ballet artists, as well as Dr Costa himself.
The dancers, without choreography, improvise their movements, respond to signals and communicate with each other as kangaroos would.
As you’d expect, there’s quite a lot of jumping – which is what kangaroos do to cover great distances in search of food and water.
The new video features a range of dancers interpreting the kangaroo’s movements and behavior, including samba dancers, drag queens and ballet artists, not to mention Dr. Costa himself
Ballet dancers Olivia Sutton and Jasmine Zolinger communicate Dr. Costa’s research on kangaroos through dance
Kangaroos are very socially aware and will adapt their behavior based on signals from other animals, the expert said
In one sequence, two dancers pretend to fight in the style of kangaroos and arch their backs, presumably a trick the rose uses to keep their balance or listen better.
Perhaps less true to Australia’s national animal are other improvised moves, including salsa, classical ballet, twerking and downright uncategorizable.
Dr. Originally from Brazil, Costa moved to Canberra to pursue a PhD in animal behavior at the ANU Research School of Biology, which he completed in 2021.
Using a remote-controlled car, Dr Costa spent more than three years studying the behavioral differences of a group of more than 300 wild eastern gray kangaroos in Wilsons Promontory National Park, Victoria.
“We wanted to see how the rose reacts to the strange sight of an unfamiliar object – whether they jump away, stay put or are curious enough to approach the car,” he said.
‘In our experiments we also walked straight up to a kangaroo to see how the animal would react.’
He found that kangaroos like to hang out in groups, but prefer smaller social circles, and will adjust their behavior based on signals from other groups.
“Think of it as a nightclub,” the biologist explained.
“You might see a guy sitting alone and he looks kind of shy, but when his more outgoing friends come up to him and they dance, the shy guy acts a little more outgoing around them.”
The research of Dr. Costa involved watching how kangaroos respond to a small, remote-controlled car in their natural habitat
Like humans, kangaroo personalities manifest early in life, such as self-confidence and sociability.
Mothers and their offspring have similar personalities, and so do siblings, which may be due to genetics, although roo personalities are also thought to be influenced by their experiences.
Kangaroos live in ‘fission fusion’ societies, meaning the size and composition of social groups change as time passes and animals move through the environment.
“Their group composition changes on average every 9.3 minutes as they forage together,” Dr Costa said.
‘Then members begin to disperse and move to other groups – and an individual’s personality will influence who they gather with.
‘Individuals who behave more similarly are more likely to be found in the same groups than individuals who behave more differently from each other.’
Dr. Costa’s dissertation, ‘Personality, Social Environment, and Maternal-Level Effects: Insights from a Wild Kangaroo Population’, can viewed online.
He will also release a new EP called ‘Yours Academically, Dr WELI, which also includes the songs ‘El Doctor’ and ‘Interlude (Yours Academically)’.