Headbanging Sea Lion (VIDEO)

WATCH: Headbanging Sea Lion

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Ronan.

Ronan is a sea lion.

But she's no ordinary sea lion, oh no.

Ronan can keep a beat. And as Peter Cook from the University of California Santa Cruz points out in this video above, this is a skill which, outside of humans, has previously only been seen in parrots and some related birds.

That's right. As if the sight of a sea lion headbanging to 'Boogie Wonderland' wasn't amazing enough, Ronan is the first non-human mammal to do such a thing.

Watch the video to show how they trained Ronan to perform the feat and learn how to keep the beat herself - despite lacking a skill for vocal mimicry, which was previously thought to be a requisite.

“Ronan’s success poses a real problem for the theory that vocal mimicry is a necessary precondition for rhythmic entrainment,” Cook told ABC Newscenter. “Human musical ability may in fact have foundations that are shared with animals."

And, adds Cook, Ronan actually shows stronger rhythm than most birds. “[The birds I've seen] fall off the beat a lot," he says. "They’re good at finding the tempo in music, but don’t seem to maintain the behaviour as reliably as Ronan. She stays right on the beat."

Adda girl, Ronan. Now if only you could learn to sing, too...

Close

What's Hot