At the Long Marine Laboratory in Santa Cruz, California, a 16-year-old sea lion named Ronan loves to put on a show. With her head bobbing in time to a percussive beat, she hits her marks not just with accuracy — but with flair. Her timing is so precise, researchers say, it outpaces even the best of us.

“She is incredibly precise, with variability of only about a tenth of an eyeblink from cycle to cycle,” said Peter Cook, a cognitive neuroscientist at New College of Florida and lead author of a new study out today in Scientific Reports. “Sometimes, she might hit the beat five milliseconds early, sometimes she might hit it 10 milliseconds late. But she’s basically hitting the rhythmic bullseye over and over and over again.”

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