Researchers have found that macaques can tap along to a musical beat. The team said that outside of humans, the ability to synchronize movement to rhythm — isochronicity — is rare in animals.

It also revealed that this behavior was observed even when the monkeys were presented with a song they had not yet heard before and when they were no longer rewarded for tapping to the beat. The findings suggest that beat perception may span a broader evolutionary continuum than previously believed.