Dancing Sea Lion Challenges the Idea that Animals can't Keep a Beat
Ronan, a sea lion, has now become the first non-human mammal who can keep up with a beat. The ability to keep a track of beat was previously found only in birds like parrots that can mimic the human voice.
Scientists from University of California, Santa Cruz, have taught Ronan to bob her head according to a rhythm.
What makes Ronan's ability special is that sea lions don't make a lot of sounds and the capacity for keeping the beat requires the knowledge of many different sounds.
"The idea was that beat keeping is a fortuitous side effect of adaptations for vocal mimicry, which requires matching incoming auditory signals with outgoing vocal behavior. It's understandable why that theory was attractive. But the fact is our sea lion has gotten really good at keeping the beat. Our finding represents a cautionary note for an idea that was really starting to take hold in the field of comparative psychology," said Peter Cook, a graduate student in psychology at UC Santa Cruz and first author of the study.
video at link
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/1155/20130402/dancing-sea-lion-challenges-idea-animals-cant-keep-beat-video.htm
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