WATCH: US Navy trains sea lions to play video games - and they love it!

The US Navy cares for its 120 bottlenose dolphins and California seal lions as part of the Navy's Marine Naval Program. The animals are trained to "detect, locate, mark and recover objects in harbors, coastal areas, and at depth in the open sea," but they've got to have a little enrichment time too, which now includes video games!

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (KFOR/Storyful) - The US Navy cares for its 120 bottlenose dolphins and California seal lions as part of the Navy's Marine Naval Program. The animals are trained to "detect, locate, mark and recover objects in harbors, coastal areas, and at depth in the open sea," but they've got to have a little enrichment time too, which now includes video games!

It sounds like science fiction, but the US Navy says dolphins actually maneuver joysticks in their mouths with their heads above water, while playing the video games after sunset, so as to not have a glare on the above-water screen.

Video at the top of this story shows a gleeful sea lion nicknamed "Spike," whom the Navy calls an "avid gamer," using his snout to press buttons.

"Although he was the last of three male sea lions to learn how to play these video games, he was the first to complete the full training program," the Navy stated. "He learned to understand the concept of controlling a cursor on a screen, then was gradually put through a series of more challenging games, with plenty of fishy rewards along the way."

So, how does one train a sea lion to play video games on the Enclosure Video Enrichment (EVE) system? First, the sea lion must be trained to ignore distractions and focus only on their trainers. Then, "sea lions were directed to sit in front of the monitor while researchers controlled gameplay, and sea lions were rewarded when their eyes tracked movement on the screen."

It eventually snowballed into a great deal of fun for Spike and he fellow sea lions, none of whom throw tantrums when they lose, unlike many humans. "You don’t really get a sea lion scoffing and throwing the controller down," said Kelley Winship, a lead researcher.

The Navy says of the sea lions and dolphins: "They show delight when they win; they want to play even when they aren’t getting positive reinforcement for winning."