Why Ronan the Sea Lion Wins the Rhythm Battle Every Time

Tapping a toe to the beat is something people do unconsciously. Parrots and monkeys have even been known to have quite the knack for keeping rhythm.

But there is an animal just as capable of not only recognizing a beat and keeping time but also being flexible enough to change as the beat slows or progresses. This animal is Ronan, the sea lion, and she can keep time better than any person ever could. Here’s why.

Why Ronan The Sea Lion Can Keep A Better Beat Than People

Ronan the Sea Lion has been touted as truly remarkable for her talent for keeping a beat better than most people. While the sea lion has gone through training sessions of listening to music and being treated to fish when she bobs her head to the beat, it is not the training that has taught Ronan to be as precise as she is. Instead, it is an innate ability to recognize and react to rhythm, something once believed only possible for vocal learners.

In a new study published in Nature, scientists from UC Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory aimed to prove that Ronan’s ability to recognize rhythms in music was spot on and better than humans’ ability to identify the same.

To prove their theory, scientists tested Ronan against 10 UC Santa Cruz undergraduates. The undergraduates were asked to use their dominant arm to keep a beat to a percussive metronome, while Ronan bobbed her head to the beat. See the video here of the experiment.

The students and Ronan were exposed to 112, 120, and 128 beats per minute, which are all beats humans are used to hearing. Ronan had never been exposed to 120 or 128 beats in her training. Ronan’s most practiced tempo was 120 beats per minute. When this was played, Ronan hit the beat within 15 milliseconds of it playing, putting her at 121.6 beats per minute. In comparison, according to the study, the undergraduates in the study had an average of 119.3 beats per minute. When the tempo of 128 beats per minute was played, Ronan performed 129 beats per minute. Conversely, the humans in the study averaged 126.2 beats per minute.

Overall, the undergrads were found to be less consistent and reliable than Ronan in all tempos.

It is worth noting that while Ronan does receive training to bob her head to the beat, it is not forced training. Instead, Ronan gets to train when she wants to. She will set herself up on her platform and let researchers know she is ready to participate. Then, when Ronan gets bored, she is allowed to leave.

According to Peter Cook, the study’s lead author and researcher with UC Santa Cruz’s Institute of Marine Sciences, Ronan has had less musical interaction in total than a 1-year-old child.

“She definitely wasn’t overtrained,” Cook explains. “Realistically, if you added up the amount of rhythmic exposure Ronan has had since she’s been with us, it is probably dwarfed by what a typical 1-year-old kid has heard.”

Further, as Ronan has gotten older, her ability to keep rhythm with a beat has improved. This is the same for humans, proving that it is not just practice, but improved cognitive ability that comes with age, that makes each performance better than the one before.  

Ronan The Sea Lion’s Early History

Ronan, the Sea Lion, did not have the easiest start in the world. According to Science Direct, the sea lion, which was born in 2008, beached herself repeatedly due to malnutrition. While she was treated and returned to the wild, after the young sea lion was found wandering a highway in Santa Cruz, California, it was clear that Ronan would not be able to survive on her own. Consequently, Ronan was deemed “non-releasable.”

Ronan became a resident of UC Santa Cruz and one of the animals studied in Long Marine Laboratory. It was here that scientists discovered that Ronan enjoyed music and had a knack for bobbing her head to the beat perfectly.

Ronan was able to find her rhythm when she was around 3 years old. Scientists with Long Marine Laboratory and others have tested Ronan’s skills to see if bobbing her head to the music was a fluke or if she truly could keep time to music.

In 2013, Ronan showed the world just how gifted she truly was. People were astonished that Ronan had rhythm. This is especially true given that other animals, such as parrots and monkeys, were previously only believed to have the capacity to have rhythm because they were vocal learners.

Ronan was able to prove that her rhythm is an innate trait. While she has undergone training, that training is negligible. Further still, the study demonstrated that Ronan can keep time to beats that she has never been introduced to and do it better than humans can.

Consequently, Ronan has proven that rhythm perception is not exclusive to vocal learners. This has led others in the scientific community to wonder just how many other species can have rhythm as well.

Ronan The Sea Lion Proves Rhythm Perception Is Not Exclusive To Vocal Learners

It has long been believed that unless an animal was a vocal learner, like humans, it could not have rhythm perception. Those who would naturally bob their heads or chirp in unison in the wild were doing nothing more than mimicry.

Parrots and rhesus monkeys were exceptions to the rule. These two animals were shown to have the ability to not only follow a beat but also keep up with it as it got slower or faster.

With these animals being vocal learners, according to Hugo Merchant, a researcher at Mexico’s Institute of Neurobiology, who was not involved in Ronan’s study, a natural conclusion was drawn that non-vocal learners were incapable of doing the same.

“Scientists once believed that only animals who were vocal learners — like humans and parrots — could learn to find a beat,” Merchant explains.

However, as Ronan has shown, with even the smallest amount of training, non-vocal learners cannot only follow a beat but do it better than verbal learners.

This discovery has opened the doors for scientists to see if other non-vocal learners also have the capability of keeping beat to music or if sea lions can do it, given that their cognition is more similar to humans than once believed.

Human And Animal Cognition Is More Similar Than Once Believed

According to the book series Ethology and Behavior Ecology of Otariids and the Odobenid, sea lions make decisions based on experience and judgments made in the past.

In the chapter The Mind of a Sea Lion, authors Peter Cook, Colleen Reichmuth (who wrote the current study on Ronan), and Frederike Hanke state that “behavioral flexibility allows sea lions and fur seals to exploit unpredictable environments.”

This same behavioral flexibility exists in people, which is how unfamiliar situations are navigated.

Ronan, in particular, was able to learn how to bob her head to the beat with a bit of training and be accurate. When exposed to a change in rhythm never experienced before the study, Ronan proved her flexibility and surpassed the ability of her human cohorts.

This study shows that sea lions have the capacity to grasp concepts and problem-solve in ways very similar to humans. Consequently, the authors of the study have opened the door to the possibility that it is not just humans and primates that have similar abilities to process and gain knowledge. It may just be that sea lions’ cognition levels are more akin to humans than ever believed.