This SeaThis Sea Lion Can Headbang Bett Lion Can Headbang Better Than You--Watch Her Out-Perform Humans at Keeping a Beat
A new study of Ronan, a sea lion famous for her dancing skills, challenges the idea that only vocal learners can match a tempo
Margherita Bassi - Daily Correspondent
May 2, 2025
Ronan the California sea lion sits in front of a pool at UC Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory. Colleen Reichmuth; NOAA / NMFS 23554
In 2013, a California sea lion named Ronan shot to fame when her trainers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, revealed she could bop her head to the rhythm of a beat—including to music she hadn’t heard before. Now, Ronan is back in the limelight, thanks to a new study published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, which demonstrates that she can match a tempo better—and more consistently—than humans.
She’s particularly talented when it comes to the song “Boogie Wonderland,” as study lead author Peter Cook, a behavioral neuroscientist at New College of Florida and UC Santa Cruz, tells the Associated Press. “She just nails that one,” he says.
To test Ronan’s precision, the researchers pitted her against ten UC Santa Cruz undergraduate students in a dance-off. They played different tempos at 112, 120 and 128 beats per minute (bpm). While Ronan had previously practiced bopping at 120 bpm, she had never experienced 112 or 128 bpm. Ronan bopped her head, and the students were asked to move an arm up and down to the beat of a percussive metronome, while the researchers measured their accuracy.
At 120 bpm, Ronan hit the beat within an average of 15 milliseconds, and her timing variability from beat to beat was also around 15 milliseconds. This is ultra precise—for comparison, it takes humans 150 milliseconds to blink, per a statement.
“Sometimes, she might hit the beat five milliseconds early, sometimes she might hit it ten milliseconds late. But she’s basically hitting the rhythmic bullseye over and over and over again,” Cook explains in the statement.
Needless to say, “there was no human that was better than Ronan on every measure of precision and consistency,” Cook tells the New York Times’ Gennaro Tomma. “And she was better than most humans on all measures, so she really rose to the top.”
More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-sea-lion-can-headbang-better-than-you-watch-her-out-perform-humans-at-keeping-a-beat-180986549/
= new reply since forum marked as read
There may be a flaw in the experimental design. 
