When animals nod off, they’re most vulnerable to sneaky predators. But despite the risks, the need for sleep is so strong that no creature can skip it altogether, even when it’s highly inconvenient. Animals that navigate extreme conditions and environments have evolved to sleep in extreme ways — for example, stealing seconds at a time during around-the-clock parenting, getting winks on the wing during long migrations and even dozing while swimming. For a long time, scientists could only make educated guesses about when wild animals were sleeping, observing when they lay still and closed their eyes. But in recent years, tiny trackers and helmets that measure brain waves — miniaturized versions of equipment in human sleep labs — have allowed researchers to glimpse for the first time the varied and sometimes spectacular ways that wild animals snooze A few other animals have similar sleeping hacks. Dolphins can sleep with one half of the brain at a time while swimming. Some other birds, including swifts and albatrosses, can sleep in flight, scientists say. That sleep consisted of both slow-wave sleep and REM sleep. During REM, or rapid eye movement sleep, the seals were temporarily paralyzed — just like humans during this deep-sleep stage — and their dive motion changed. Instead of a controlled downward glide motion, they sometimes turned upside down and spun in what the researchers called a “sleep spiral” during REM sleep
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Some Animals Have Evolved Extreme Ways To Sleep In Precarious Environments
