Ronan, the sea lion, continues to keep the rhythm even after all these years.
She can create grooves with rocks and electronic music. However, her talent truly shines as she bobs along to classic hits like “Boogie Wonderland.”
“She’s absolutely nailing it,” said Peter Cook, a behavioral neuroscientist at the University of Florida, who has dedicated a decade to studying Ronan’s rhythmic talents, observing her shake her head in sync with tempo changes.
While many animals lack the ability to recognize the beat, humans, parrots, and some primates can. Ronan, however, is prompting scientists to reconsider what music means.
Rescued years ago, she rocketed to fame about a decade ago when researchers highlighted her musical abilities. Since she was three, she has called the Ocean Institute at the University of California, Santa Cruz her home, where she has assisted researchers, including Cook, in recognizing rhythms.
Ronan is part of a group of remarkable animals, including cockatoos, challenging the long-held belief that only humans excel in responding to music and identifying beats.
Notably, Ronan learned to dance to the beat without needing to learn how to sing or produce music.
“Previously, it was thought that only vocal learners, like humans and parrots, could discern beats,” noted Hugo Merchant, a researcher at the Institute of Neurobiology in Mexico.
However, after Ronan became a star, questions emerged regarding her sustained abilities. Was her previous acclaim a fluke? Could she even outperform humans in maintaining the beat?
A chef and fellow researchers devised a plan to tackle this question. Their findings, detailed in new research published in the journal Scientific Reports, confirm that Ronan remains a star.
This time, researchers focused on lab tempos using percussion instruments, rather than recorded music. During the study, Ronan shook her head to three distinct tempos: 112, 120, and 128 beats per minute. These tempos were unfamiliar to her, enabling scientists to test her adaptability to new rhythms.
Ten university students participated in a similar task, showcasing their abilities as well.
Ronan emerged as the top performer.
“No one outperformed Ronan across the various tests for beat keeping,” Cook shared, adding, “she’s significantly improved since childhood.”
Hencan Horning, a music cognition researcher at the University of Amsterdam and not involved in the study, stated that the findings reinforce Ronan’s status as one of the leading examples of animal musicality.
Researchers plan to train and evaluate other sea lions. Cook believes others might also have beat-keeping abilities, but Ronan remains a standout star performer.
Source: www.nbcnews.com
