“Rhythm” is a basic factor that creates a way of movement, group and pulse. It refers to a recurring sample of actions or sounds present in numerous features of life, resembling dance and poetry. In music, rhythm entails the position of sounds in time.
On the intersection of biology and psychology, there’s a tantalizing subject of research known as biomusicality, which appears to be like at whether or not completely different species are able to behaving in ways in which present that they acknowledge features of music, together with beat and rhythm.
For instance, feminine crested gibbons show jerky, virtually robotic patterns of motion. Researchers have studied these conspicuous actions, that are similar to human dances. Just lately, they’ve been in a position to describe the construction of those dances, the contexts by which they happen and their distinct rhythms—and have discovered that they’re intentional.
And a extremely skilled California sea lion who achieved world fame for her capability to bob her head to a beat is again: she’s starring in a brand new research that exhibits her rhythm is simply as exact—if not higher—than that of people.
All eight species of crested gibbons (jap black, western black, Hainan, northern grey, northern white-cheeked, southern white-cheeked, northern yellow-cheeked and southern yellow-cheeked) are endangered attributable to habitat loss and to trying to find meals, conventional medicines and the wildlife commerce.
The dances of gibbons
Crested gibbons belong to the household of small apes (or “lesser apes”) known as Hylobatidae. Guests to zoos could have observed how feminine crested gibbons carry out dramatic sequences of twitching actions involving their arms, legs and rumps. This habits has additionally been seen in gibbons dwelling within the wild.
Whereas there was little scientific curiosity in these particular shows up to now, now researchers from Germany’s Heinrich Heine College Dusseldorf, Norway’s College of Oslo and France’s Institut Jean Nicod in Paris have studied these showy actions, that are similar to human dances. In an article revealed within the scientific journal Primates in October 2024, they describe the construction of the dances and their contexts.
The scientists centered on the intentionality, rhythms and sequences of the actions and the circumstances by which the gibbons carry out them. Video materials from numerous rescue facilities and zoos proved that every one species of crested gibbons carry out such dances. The deliberate use of this visible type of communication was indicated by the truth that throughout performances, the gibbons usually checked to see whether or not their audiences had been paying consideration.
There are similarities between the dances of feminine crested gibbons and people, however they in all probability advanced independently of one another since different species of apes don’t show this habits.
It was found that solely sexually mature females dance. Whereas the dances had been primarily used to solicit copulation, in addition they occurred in a variety of conditions associated to nonsexual arousal or frustration and had been often directed at people when carried out in captivity in zoos. The researchers additionally noticed that the dance actions had been usually organized in teams of up-down or left-right actions, and so they adopted a transparent rhythm. Relying on the person, they different in complexity.
The researchers state that they see similarities between crested gibbon and human dances, however they presume that they advanced independently of one another. This conclusion relies on the truth that different species of apes don’t show any such habits. Moreover, gibbon dances are more likely to be innate, whereas human dances are primarily decided by tradition and are often accompanied by music or songs. That is by no means the case with gibbons.
The top-bobbing of a California sea lion
Ronan, a extremely skilled California sea lion on the College of California, Santa Cruz, first shimmied onto the world stage in 2013 when researchers on the college’s Joseph M. Lengthy Marine Laboratory reported that not solely may she bob her head to a beat, however she may alter her nods to music and tempos that she hadn’t heard earlier than. In a brand new research, revealed in Could 2025 within the nature journal Scientific Reviews, Ronan’s analysis crew confirmed that her synchronization was nearly as good or higher than that of people and that her consistency in performing the beat-keeping process was higher than that of people.
California sea lions are recognized for his or her intelligence, noisy barking and playfulness. Their fur shade ranges from a male’s chocolate brown to a feminine’s lighter, golden brown. Male California sea lions can weigh as much as 850 kilos, whereas females would possibly develop to 250 kilos.
Ronan was born within the wild in 2008; however attributable to malnutrition, she stranded repeatedly. After three such strandings and being noticed strolling down Freeway 1 in 2009, regulatory businesses lastly deemed her to be non-releasable. So, UC Santa Cruz adopted her in 2010, and she or he grew to become a everlasting member of the Pinniped Lab.
The lab makes use of cooperative coaching strategies to check habits and physiology in marine mammals. Resident analysis animals, together with Ronan, take part in a variety of tasks that assist science groups discover their water-loving topics’ internal worlds. Examples embody research on diving physiology, studying and reminiscence, and sensory biology.
In different phrases, Ronan isn’t simply engaged on her rhythm each day within the lab. The crew estimates that, over the previous 12 years, she has participated in about 2,000 rhythm workout routines—every lasting simply 10 to fifteen seconds. Generally, years glided by between these periods whereas she centered on different areas of analysis. Which means Ronan wasn’t overtrained. The authors of the research say that for those who added up the quantity of rhythmic publicity Ronan has had since she’s been on the lab, it’s in all probability dwarfed by what a typical one-year-old youngster has heard.
California sea lions, resembling Ronan, can get stranded attributable to quite a lot of elements, often linked to domoic acid poisoning from dangerous algal blooms, extra widespread due to local weather change. Illnesses, bycatch in fishing gear and modifications in water temperatures that disrupt the distribution of prey are additionally causes.
To conduct the latest research, researchers requested 10 UC Santa Cruz undergraduates to maneuver their most popular arm in a fluid, up-and-down movement to the beat of a percussive metronome, which finest matches Ronan’s approach of responding to a beat: a head bob. Three tempos had been performed—at 112, 120 and 128 beats per minute (bpm). Ronan had not beforehand been uncovered to 112 and 128 bpm.
Ronan was discovered to be extremely exact; at 120 bpm, Ronan’s most practiced tempo, she, on common, hit inside 15 milliseconds of the beat. Ronan’s variability in timing beat-to-beat can be round 15 milliseconds. In contrast, the blink of a human eye takes about 150 milliseconds. Mainly, say the scientists, she hits the rhythmic bull’s-eye again and again.
The UC Santa Cruz researchers emphasize that Ronan is in full management of her participation. She is just not disadvantaged of meals nor punished for selecting to not have interaction; and her coaching construction displays this autonomy: she begins every session by climbing onto a chosen ramp station, the place she relaxes whereas ready for the experiment to start. As soon as prepared, she positions herself and alerts her readiness to begin. If she chooses to disengage at any level, she is free to return to her pool with none detrimental penalties.
Snowball is a sulphur-crested cockatoo, a species of parrot, just like the one pictured right here. Snowball is thought for his spontaneous dancing skills. He was first acknowledged for his viral movies, significantly his “head-banging” to the musical group Backstreet Boys.
The dependable beats of Ronan and Snowball
Ronan’s authentic rhythm research was impressed by work involving the intermittent beat-keeping of Snowball, a pet cockatoo who spontaneously “danced” to the Backstreet Boys, an American vocal group shaped in 1993. As a result of cockatoos and people are each vocal mimics, the investigations involving Snowball led to a principle that mind modifications to help vocal studying had been required for transferring in time to music.
Sea lions haven’t proven the power to be taught new vocalizations, so Ronan’s 2013 research made an enormous splash as a result of it challenged the vocal-learning principle of rhythm. However within the research’s wake, some outstanding theorists in biomusicality claimed that her efficiency was not as exact and dependable as human efficiency.
They prompt that Ronan won’t be doing precisely what people had been; and that, subsequently, she couldn’t depend on the identical organic mechanisms for perceiving and transferring in time to rhythm. That prompted the UC Santa Cruz researchers to check Ronan once more to see if she had improved and to match her efficiency to folks executing an analogous process with the identical sounds.
Scientific research involving Ronan, the California sea lion, problem present beliefs about which animals can understand and produce rhythms. There have been follow-up explorations of rhythm throughout numerous species, together with elephants.
What they discovered, as we now know, is that Ronan was extra exact and constant at each tempo that was examined. And in a head-to-head battle of the beats with the UC Santa Cruz college students, she greater than held her personal. The research’s authors then used the scholars’ efficiency to mannequin the theoretical efficiency of 10,000 people conducting the identical rhythmic habits. Primarily based on that mannequin, Ronan was within the 99th percentile for beat-keeping reliability.
The ripple results of rhythm analysis
Now, at 170 kilos and age 16, Ronan is “a grown-up and in her prime” for a feminine sea lion in managed care, say the scientists. Being along with her day in and day trip over greater than a decade, the researchers have turn into extraordinarily attuned to Ronan. They know that she is clever and motivated; she needs to carry out properly. And similar to with us, her efficiency will get higher with observe. Her new research exhibits that have and maturation matter. Greater than only a check of rhythmic efficiency, it displays her cognition and her capability to refine it over time.
Similarly, Ronan’s story is not only about one sea lion. The analysis on her progress has had far-reaching impacts within the scientific group. Her journey from a curious and keen orphaned sea lion to a key determine in rhythm-perception research has exceeded all expectations. Her skills name into query present paradigms about which species can understand and produce rhythms, opening new doorways for analysis on the cognitive capacities of many sorts of animals, together with birds, elephants, primates and people.
The research of biomusicality goes again not less than to Charles Darwin. He famous that rhythm is all over the place within the organic world, main naturally, he thought, to the rise of music. Scientific curiosity acquired a lift with recordings of whale songs within the Sixties and has grown dramatically.
Researchers who research biomusicality are adamant that their subject of research isn’t about educating animals cool social gathering methods for enjoyable. What they search is to foster a broader understanding of the evolution of cognition and rhythm notion throughout species, the universality of sample recognition and the intricate methods by which brains—each human and more-than-human—course of the world round them.
I’ve to confess, although, inviting a hen like Snowball to a dance social gathering may very well be numerous enjoyable. Simply watch.
Right here’s to discovering your true locations and pure habitats,
Sweet
