Meet Ronan, the disco sealion

Scientists discover marine mammal's love for 'Boogie Wonderland, by Earth, Wind and Fire.

Is this an April Fool's joke?

Frankly, we don't know what to believe any more… if it is a prank, it's a darn good one.

(PinnipedLab via YouTube)

Scientists in the US say they have trained a sea lion named Ronan ('little seal' as Gaeilge, fact fans) "to bob her head in time with rhythmic sounds" - and it looks legit, apart from the date.

This is a big deal, it is claimed, as Ronan is the first non-human mammal convincingly shown to be able to keep the beat.

"Scientists call it "rhythmic entrainment," and aside from humans it was previously seen only in parrots and other birds with a talent for vocal mimicry," the team at Long Marine Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Cruz said in a press release yesterday (you can see why we're sceptical).

"Ronan's success poses a real problem for the theory that vocal mimicry is a necessary precondition for rhythmic entrainment," said Peter Cook, a graduate student in psychology who's been working with the sealion.

Researchers had been inspired by a cockatoo named Snowball, who became an internet sensation in 2009 after his owner posted a video of Snowball dancing to the Backstreet Boys.

Here it is:

(BirdLoversOnly via YouTube)

"Researchers intrigued by the video had conducted a rigorous search for more dancing-animal videos and found that, at least on YouTube, parrots and their relatives accounted for almost every apparent case of beat keeping," USC said.

But Ronan, who came to the laboratory in 2010, seems to debunk the theory that only birds have rhythm.

"Human musical ability may in fact have foundations that are shared with animals," Cook said.

"People have assumed that animals lack these abilities. In some cases, people just hadn't looked."

(Hat Tip: Jezebel)