August 2, 2016 by Liam Drew
Ronan the sea lion can keep the
beat better than any other animal, a study published in Frontiers in
Neuroscience found out more.
Whether it is Mozart, Hendrix,
Miles Davis, or tribal drumming, few activities feel as uniquely human as
music. And, indeed, for a long time, most scientists believed that Homo sapiens
was the only species capable of creating and responding to rhythm and melody.
This view, however, was
challenged profoundly in 2009, when a cockatoo called Snowball was shown to be
an able dancer.
Snowball bopping along to pop
songs clearly demonstrated that non-human species had the neurobiological
apparatus required to process rhythmic stimuli and move in time them.
And now - following
investigations that have shown that chimps, bonobos, parrots and budgerigars
have similar capabilities - a study of a head-bobbing Californian sea lion
called Ronan has provided data that may aid scientists in their quest to
understand the biological roots of musicality.
Ronan was placed in captivity
when she was about a year old after failing to thrive in the wild. Her new team
of keepers had previously explored the cognitive abilities of sea lions, and in
what was originally a side-project explored at weekends, Peter Cook and Andrew
Rouse decided to see if Ronan could keep a beat.
Rewarding her with fish treats
every time she successfully nodded along to a click track, Cook and Rouse
eventually found that Ronan could beat-keep better than any other non-human
animal. Later, she learnt to dance to pop songs too; her favourite is Earth,
Wind and Fire's Boogie Wonderland.
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