Sea Lion Ronan Dances to Music, Challenging Human Superiority

Ronan the sea lion can still keep a beat after all these years.

She can move to the beat of rock and electronica. Yet, at 15 years old, California The sea lion's prowess is best highlighted when bopping to disco tunes such as "Boogie Wonderlands."

"She absolutely hits that part," she bobbed her head along with the rhythm shifts, remarked. Peter Cook , a behavioural neuroscientist at New College of Florida who has dedicated a decade to researching Ronan’s capabilities with rhythm.

Few creatures demonstrate an evident capability to recognize and synchronize movements with a rhythm besides humans, parrots, and certain primates. However, along comes Ronan, a keen-eyed sea lion who is prompting researchers to reconsider what we understand about music.

A previous rescue sea lion, she gained widespread recognition roughly ten years back following reports from scientists about her musical talents. Since the age of three, she has lived at the University of California, Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory, where researchers like Cook have assessed and developed her capacity to identify rhythmic patterns.

Ronan became part of an exclusive club of animal movers and shakers – which counts among its members Snowball, the renowned head-bopping cockatoo – collectively challenging the longstanding belief that the capacity to react to music and detect a rhythm was uniquely human.

One remarkable aspect of Ronan is her ability to learn dancing to a rhythm without acquiring singing or musical speech skills.

“ Scientists “Previously, it was thought that only vocal learning species such as humans and parrots had the ability to detect rhythmic beats,” stated Hugo Merchant, a researcher from Mexico’s Institute of Neurobiology, who was not part of the Ronan study.

However, in the years following Ronan’s emergence into the limelight, doubts arose regarding whether she was still capable of performing as impressively. Had her previous dance feats been an anomaly? Was Ronan more adept at maintaining rhythm compared to others?

In response to the challenge, Cook and his team designed a novel study, which was released Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.

The outcome: Ronan still possesses it. She’s returned and she’s more impressive than ever.

On this occasion, the researchers turned their attention away from studio music towards capturing percussive rhythms within a lab setting. They recorded Ronan nodding her head in rhythm as the drummer performed at three distinct speeds: 112, 120, and 128 beats per minute. Two Of these rhythmic patterns, Ronan had never before encountered, enabling researchers to assess her ability to adapt to novel tempos.

The researchers also had 10 university students perform the task, moving their forearms to varying tempos.

Ronan was at the pinnacle of being a diva.

“Ronan excelled at all our various tests for measuring rhythm keeping ability; no one else came close,” stated Cook, also noting that “her skills have improved significantly since her youth,” highlighting lifelong learning.

The latest research reaffirms Ronan’s status as one of the "leading envoys" for animals' musical abilities, according to Henkjan Honing, a music cognition researcher at the University of Amsterdam, who did not participate in this study.

Researchers intend to train and assess additional sea lions. Cook believes that other sea lions might be capable of head-bobbing to rhythms too—but Ronan is expected to remain a standout star in this ability.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. However, the AP maintains full responsibility for the entire content.

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