Witness to a Wild Performance

Divers often say that some moments underwater feel staged… As if the ocean and its depths patiently wait for an audience.

Floating just above a colourful coral reef, scuba divers watch a manta ray mating train unfold: Asingle female gliding ahead with quiet power, whilst twelve males tail her in synchronised pursuit, each one flicking their fins, swerving, and summersaulting in hopeful elegance. It’s a spectacle. Mesmerising, balletic, precise.

This is a show of courting. The performance is for the female, and the instinct of all involved, is survival.

But what about when a manta ray twirls on its own? What about the curious tumbles, glides, and rolls that occur around the bubbles released by a scuba diver exhaling?

Is this curiosity at work? Or a show of skill? There is an unquestionable awareness of the divers in the vicinity, but does this awareness extend to the concept of an outside observer? Does it stretch as far to be considered a performance across species?

Perhaps the manta ray is not alone in this. Across the animal kingdom, creatures dazzle with colour, sound, and movement. Dances, songs, shimmering displays. Performed not only for their own kind, but at times, it seems, for anyone watching or listening. Could these be more than instinctive behaviours?

When animals perform, are they only communicating between their kind? Or might they also be reaching across species lines, expressing something meant to be seen, heard, or simply witnessed?

Nature’s Stage: The Many Meanings of Performance

One could say that nature is filled with performances. Some that are dazzling, some that are subtle, but all of which are meaningful. From the glow of a bioluminescent jellyfish to the collective flight of starlings, animals use light, sound, movement, and mimicry not just to survive, but to signal, to impress, and to connect.

Whether courting, defending, or socialising, these displays suggest a rich, sensory language that deserves a closer look. The peacock for example, is known to display the rich colours of their tail primarily for impressing potential mates. They have also been observed to use this display as a sign of dominance amongst other males. Two primary purposes of display, both within the peacock’s own species.

So what about the times a peacock has opened its feathers for a human audience, despite the presence of a potential mate or rival? Is this act misdirected? Or can it possibly be exploratory behaviour? A way to seek attention and reap satisfaction from displaying what makes it an individual?

But it’s not just birds who put on a show. Beneath the waves, creatures like the octopus perform with even more dramatic shifts. Not just in colour, but in perceived emotion.

The octopus is popularly known for its almost magical ability to morph and contort into different colours, textures, and shapes. The octopus puts on this ‘act’ to ward off predators, camouflage from them, as well as attract potential mates.

Consider this: When a diver observes an octopus changing colour, when there are no clear predators in sight, is this misdirected behaviour of the octopus, much like that of the peacock? Are they showcasing their skills because they feel threatened by humans, a modern predator? Or can their displays of colour signify something else, something such as emotion?

Octopus have been observed to turn a darker colour when displaying aggression, and a lighter shade when avoiding conflict. [1] Additionally, US-based marine biologist and physiologist Robyn Crook has also conducted studies on pain responses in octopus, and has observed them as they were inflicted with pain and their behavioural changes towards the cause. This is one part of a number of studies that indicates animal reception to feeling pain, and quite strongly suggests an ability to produce and experience negative feelings. [2] This leads to the next question; if octopus (among other animals) can feel negative emotions, is it possible for them to feel positive ones as well? And thus, is it possible for them to behave and perform for reasons more than survival alone, as a result of sentience?

Projecting the Performer

Maybe we are simply projecting our own human sense of performance, theatre, and pleasure onto animals.

In the case of observing the lyrebird: A master of auditory mimicry of other birds, species, and even man-made machines. We are presented with another suspicion of cross-species performance and a sense of self-awareness. A study conducted on lyrebirds and their ability to combine movement with song during courting performances suggest a sense of rhythm. An element which highlights another similarity between humans and animals within the scope of performance. [3]

However, by concluding this behaviour as ‘song and dance’ by the lyrebird, are we applying an anthropocentric bias on animal behaviour? Just as when we suggest the concept of emotions, negative or positive?

Is performance itself in the way that we understand it, a human concept alone?

Bridges Between Species: A Shared Language

There is also a possibility that there are, in fact, similarities across different species that cannot be disregarded or ignored.

In the realm of visual and auditory displays within performance, we can refer to an example of the humpback whale song. For the purposes of mating, communication, and possibly also echolocation, [4] the lullaby songs of the humpback whales have been intriguing scientists for long.

Compelling studies have revealed striking parallels between the songs of humpback whales and human verbal communication. Patterns of speech and cultural transmission once thought to be unique to our species. [5] In existence are also investigations surrounding the extent to which humpbacks relay messages through sound and their distance across oceans. The scale of which cultural transmission can travel in humpbacks has been found to rival the range and complexity seen similarly in human language. [6]

These examples demonstrate how initial interpretations of animal behaviour often frame them strictly through the lens of survival instinct. However with time, open-minded inquiry, and continued research, our understanding has the potential to deepen. Exploration can reveal unexpected complexity, and perhaps, a reflection of ourselves within the animal kingdom.

An Open Curtainn

We may not entirely understand all of the reasons why animals perform and behave, or who their displays are truly meant for. Our human bias can only take us so far before we start projecting, guessing, and making unrealistic conclusions. But even through this fog of uncertainty, there are undeniable parallels between our evolutionary behaviour and theirs. Between our need to be seen, and their signals cast into the open wild.

Whether these are just coincidences or cracks in the doorway to something more, it is a mystery that is still unfolding. Maybe the manta ray’s spirals weren’t just survival or even a spectacle. But instead, a gesture that we have yet learned to translate.

Or maybe all that a performance is, is awareness, witnessed.

A diver watching a dance in the blue. A song echoing through the ocean dark. A movement placed delicately with sound. Not just instinct, but intention. Not just display, but connection? ✧

- Kayli Wouters