Who says animals can't have a sense of rhythm? Despite the fact that until now it was believed that only parrots (and similar birds) had the capacity for rhythm and that this musical ability was the exclusive preserve of human beings , a sea lioness that goes by the name of "Ronan", from the laboratory Long Marine from the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) in the United States, has defeated this thesis.
Ronan, a wild sea lioness belonging to the Zalophus californianus species, was rescued in 2009 by the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito and brought to the Long Marine Lab in 2010. Since then, UCSC researchers Peter Cook and Andrew Rouse have found that the sea lioness was particularly special and they decided to work on their cognitive and sensory systems .
First, they taught him to move his head with very basic rhythms, to later observe that he was able to apply this skill to any rhythm, sound or music, even if he had not previously heard them. Thus, the sea lioness is able to move its head to the rhythm of any song, even if it has not heard it before, which makes it the first non-human mammal capable of moving to the rhythm of music .
The research results have been presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in Chicago.
Image credit: C. Reichmuth
