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The Mind of a Sea Lion

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Ethology and Behavioral Ecology of Otariids and the Odobenid

Part of the book series: Ethology and Behavioral Ecology of Marine Mammals ((EBEMM))

Abstract

The mind of a sea lion links sensory information gathered from the surrounding environment to the decision operations, or cognitive processes, that enable behavioral responses based on judgement and experience. Here, we illustrate the sea lion’s impressive capabilities for complex associative learning and highlight some of the unique and essential contributions sea lions have made to our understanding of problem solving, concept formation, and memory in non-human animals. We suggest that the persistence and behavioral flexibility that allow sea lions and fur seals to exploit unpredictable environments make them particularly well suited to performing in the behavioral laboratory, and therefore, highly valuable models for comparative studies of learning and intelligence.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The largest carnivores, like the polar bear (Ursus maritimus) or Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus), have brain weights around 500 g and are expected to have at least a billion cortical neurons. Due to higher neuron packing density, carnivores have more cortical neurons than ungulates of the same brain size (Herculano-Houzel 2012; Kazu et al. 2014).

  2. 2.

    African lions and domestic dogs have approximately 500 million cortical neurons (Jardim-Messeder et al. 2017). Humans have approximately 16 billion (Herculano‐Houzel 2018).

  3. 3.

    Ronan is a young female sea lion raised in captivity following stranding and rehabilitation; she was named in honor of Dr. Ron Schusterman.

  4. 4.

    Video examples of Ronan’s beat keeping performance can be found at https://youtu.be/6yS6qU_w3JQ and https://youtu.be/qwcR5LSsTUI.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, New College of Florida, Sarasota, FL, USA

    Peter Cook

  2. Long Marine Laboratory, Institute for Marine Sciences, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    Colleen Reichmuth

  3. Neuroethology, Institute for Biosciences, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany

    Frederike D. Hanke

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  1. Peter Cook
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  2. Colleen Reichmuth
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  3. Frederike D. Hanke
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Correspondence to Colleen Reichmuth .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Wildlife Conservation Society, Marine and Argentina Programs, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Claudio Campagna

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Robert Harcourt

1 Electronic Supplementary Material

Sea lion Rocky responding to several instructional sequences given in an artificial language paradigm. Correct responses are marked by a whistle and reinforced with fish (MP4 52596 kb)

Sea lion Rio performing an identity matching-to-sample task. Correct responses (selecting the choice stimulus that matches the shape in the center position) are marked by a tone and reinforced with fish (MP4 32438 kb)

Sea lion Rio demonstrates classification of alphanumeric shapes, first in a reversal procedure and then in a matching-to-sample procedure. Correct responses are marked by a tone and reinforced with fish (MP4 173573 kb)

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Cook, P., Reichmuth, C., Hanke, F.D. (2021). The Mind of a Sea Lion. In: Campagna, C., Harcourt, R. (eds) Ethology and Behavioral Ecology of Otariids and the Odobenid. Ethology and Behavioral Ecology of Marine Mammals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59184-7_17

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