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Musical Mammals

懂音乐的动物有哪些？

Think humans are the only creatures capable of grooving¹ to a beat? Think again. Turns out a growing number of animals are just as musically inclined.

人类是唯一能够随着节拍起舞的生物吗？不是。事实上，越来越多的动物显示出音乐天赋。

Beyond Parrots

除鹦鹉之外

Now, you may already know that parrots and other birds that mimic² human speech are also good at keeping time to a musical beat. Scientists think it’s a side effect of repeating human speech sounds.

你可能已经知道鹦鹉和其他一些能够模仿人类语言的鸟类也擅于把握音乐节拍。科学家认为这是它们重复人类语言声音而产生的副作用。

But researchers have found that both sea lions and bonobos are also capable of bopping to a beat. Researchers beat a drum at around 280 beats per minute and found that bonobos were able to pick up the beat and play it on a specially³ designed drum.

但是，研究人员发现，海狮和倭黑猩猩也有乐感。研究人员以每分钟约280次的速度击鼓，发现倭黑猩猩能够跟上节奏，并在一个特制的鼓上演奏出来。

Now, given that bonobos are closely related to humans, their rhythmic⁴ ability might not sound very surprising. In the wild, bonobos are known to beat on hollow trees. But sea lions are a different story they’re not known to follow or pick up a beat.

由于倭黑猩猩是人类的“近亲”，它们具有节奏感也许并不稀奇。在野外，倭黑猩猩以能在中空的树上击打出节奏而闻名。但海狮却不一样，人们可从不知道它们能跟上节拍。

So it was surprising when researchers working with a sea lion they named Ronan were able to train her to bob her head in time to different tempos⁵.

因此当研究人员同一只名叫罗南的海狮共同协作，训练它能够随着不同的节拍摇头晃脑就十分令人惊奇了。

More Widespread

更多有乐感的动物

Beyond the fact that teaching a sea lion to groove⁶ to a beat is pretty cool, it also suggests that the ability may be much more widespread in the animal kingdom than we’ve assumed, and that keeping time to a beat is not limited to animals able to mimic human speech.

训练海狮“闻拍起舞”十分有范儿，但也这表明动物王国中有乐感的动物也许要比我们想象的多，能跟上节拍的动物也不仅限于能够“学舌”的动物。

So we may not yet be at the point where we’ll see rock bands with seals or apes on drums, but when it comes to music, humans and other animals appear to have more in common than meets the eye.

也许目前我们还看不到一个由海豹或猩猩组成的摇滚乐队，但是，在音乐方面，人类和其他动物似乎比表面上看起来有更多共同点。