Ronan the head-bobbing sea lion proves animals can keep a beat: ‘No human was better’ | California

Ronan The Sea Lion can still retain the crowding after all these years.

It can groove to rock and electronic music. But the 15 -year -old California talent Boogie Wonderland.

“It is only held,” said Peter Cook, a behavioral neuroscientist at New Coluliding College in Florida, who spent a decade in studying Ronan’s rhythmic capabilities.

Many animals do not show a clear ability to determine and Go to a rhythm Regardless of humans, Parrots And some Primary. But then, there is Ronan, the bright sea lion that scientists rethink Meaning of music.

It is a former rescue sea lion, which exploded in fame about a decade ago after the scientists reported its musical skills. From the age of three, she was residing at a university CaliforniaThe Santa Cruz Laughter Laboratory, where the researchers, including Cook, tested its ability to identify rhythms.

Ronan joined a selection of animal engines and vibrants – which also includes Cockatoo famous snowball This has raised the idea of ​​a long time that the ability to respond to music and learn about the rhythm was clearly human.

What is particularly attention to Ronan is that she can learn to dance on a rhythm without learning to sing or speak musically.

“Scientists have once believed that animals that were vocal learners – such as humans and parrots – can learn to find a rhythm,” said Hugo Merchant, a researcher at the Institute of Neurology in Mexico, who did not participate in Ronan’s research.

But in the years that Ronan entered the limelight, questions appeared about whether she still had. Was she dancing in the past Flock? Was Ronan better than people in keeping a rhythm?

To answer this challenge, Cook and his colleagues created a new study, published on Thursday in the Journal of Scientific Reports.

The result: Ronan still has. It is back and better than ever.

This time the researchers focused not on studio music, but on the rhythm of the laboratory. They photographed Ronan wiping her head while the drama player played three different virgins – 112, 120 and 128 beats per minute. Two of these rhythms have never been subjected to Ronan, allowing scientists to test their flexibility in identifying new rhythms.

The researchers asked 10 university students to do the same, and to help them change rhythms.

Ronan was the largest singer.

“No human being was better than Ronan in all the different ways we experience the quality of the pulse preservation,” Cook said, adding: “It is much better than it was when she was a child,” which indicates a lifelong learning.

Hencan Shaheer, a music -realistic researcher at the University of Amsterdam, who did not participate in the study, said that the new study confirms the place of Ronan as one of the “senior ambassadors” of animal music.

Researchers are planning to train and test other lions. Cook suspects that other sea lions can outperform the victory – but Ronan will still stand out as a star’s performance.