10 Animals We Don’t Understand How They Sleep So Little

For humans, sleeping is one of the most anticipated activities of our day, because thanks to it, we recharge the energy that we use in our daily activities. When resting, we have the possibility to perform at our best. Sleep is essential for the proper functioning of our brain. Can you imagine sleeping just a few hours a day? There are animals that only enjoy a short period of rest.

O awesome.club shares with you some of the animals that, surprisingly, manage to stay all day with only a few hours of sleep, and some, despite having little time, divide it into short periods.

Just like whales, dolphins only sleep half of their brain. The left eye closes when this half of the brain sleeps and vice versa. This action is to monitor your breathing. Some float motionless on the surface of the water and others swim slowly. In a 24-hour period, each cerebral hemisphere rests 4 hours.

Elephants can eat up to 200 kg of food in a day and are the largest land animals in existence. Specimens that live in zoos sleep 4 to 6 hours a day, while those that live in their natural habitat usually rest only 2 hours. With such enormous size, it remains a mystery how they survive on so little sleep.

Here, the queen commands and sleeps 9 hours. Worker ants sleep only 4 to 5 hours a day, but not all at once, their rest time is divided into approximately 250 short naps of a maximum of 1 minute. This could explain why queens live several years and the rest only a few months.

This mammal can reach up to 800 kg. We could assume that they eat and sleep all day. However, most of the time you can see the cows feeding on grasses in the pasture. Until it is very tired, very hot, or has completed a digestion cycle (which can last up to 8 hours), this ruminant will lie down for 4 hours to rest, especially at night.

Sheep spend practically all day the same way as cows and therefore probably don’t have much time to rest. Thanks to their horizontal slit-shaped pupils, their peripheral vision is very good, with a field of view between 270° and 320°, so they can see behind them without turning their heads.

The impala is a species of antelope. The males have horns that can reach up to 90 cm and are the ones that sleep the least due to the protection they must provide their herd. Its rest lasts for 3 hours and, interestingly, it is as if this animal has an integrated alarm that warns it when it is time to wake up.

This domestic animal almost never reaches a deep sleep. He can rest standing or lying down. His naps last up to 15 minutes at most, due to his alertness, whether in a group or alone. Their advantage is that, thanks to their strong brays, they can ask others of their kind for help, even at a distance of 3 kilometers.

These animals spend most of the day on their feet, as they are prepared to flee in case someone else wants to hunt them down. They have an anatomical system known as a “reciprocal support device”, which allows them to maintain a straight leg without exerting too much muscular effort. That’s why they can sleep without any problems while standing up — they can also do it lying down. Horses sleep about 3 hours a day divided into naps, regularly 15 minutes.

Giraffes can survive without much sleep. Their rest period is 1 to 2 hours and they are not even raced. Your rest is divided into naps, between 5 and 7 minutes. Most of the time they are on their feet, because their great height helps them defend against predators. When tiredness is great, they lean back and, arching their necks, carry their heads on their backs. But this is not the best sleeping position, as the elevation of the head, which can weigh up to 11 kg and measure up to 61 cm in length, can be below your heart and cause pumped blood to accumulate in it, causing a heart attack. stroke.

The human brain, when sleeping, focuses on just that: sleep. Whales cannot fall into deep sleep as they can sink. So they only sleep half their brains. The part that stays awake guarantees its breathing and is alert in case of any danger. This phenomenon allows them to keep moving to maintain their body temperature. In total, they rest for 30 minutes. Some do this on the surface and others prefer to stay upright to rest. This period can be divided into naps between 10 and 12 minutes.

Sharks need to be on the move to acquire oxygen, which enters their mouths and escapes through their gills. Some hide in caves to rest because their currents can provide the oxygen they need. There was a myth that sharks never slept because that would deprive them of oxygen. However, on Isla Mujeres in the Mexican Caribbean, a cave was discovered where several sharks appeared to be completely asleep. It is not yet known how long their sleep periods last, but at least we already know that these fascinating animals sleep.

An adult dog can sleep 9 hours at night and another 5 during the day. In the case of older ones or puppies, they usually sleep 70% of the day. In this case, your physical activity and your environment influence the amount of hours you spend resting.

As in the case of dogs, these felines sleep depending on their age, environment and physical activity. They are considered twilight animals, so they tend to be more alert at dawn and when it gets dark. An adult cat can sleep between 14 and 16 hours on average. Even if they are domestic, they have a hunting instinct, and for them, playing with a stuffed animal is like hunting, which produces levels of adrenaline and heat loss. That’s why they must compensate by sleeping most of the day.

This species requires a rest of 16 hours to be able to have an effective performance and remain active during the rest of the day. When not sleeping, the lemur goes out in search of food and does other activities. They are native to Madagascar and the tropical heat may be one of the reasons they encourage them to sleep so much, in addition to being an arboreal animal, so going from tree to tree can consume their energy.

An armadillo’s armor can weigh up to three times as much as its own body. Maybe that’s why you need so many hours of sleep. This animal ends the day without energy and completely exhausted after carrying so much weight. To sleep, he buries himself in his den.

The sloth lives in trees and only comes down to do and bury its needs every week. Then look for another tree to stay. These animals are very slow due to their low body mass, and the slowness of their movements saves and manages their energy for when it is necessary to use it, as in the case of an attack or flight to protect themselves. That’s why its rest period reaches up to 20 hours.

Many would like to be a koala, because it is the king of sleep, sleeping 18 to 22 hours a day, on the forks or branches of trees. Their long day of sleep is due to their diet based on eucalyptus leaves, which contain toxins, are rich in fibrous matter and very low in nutrition, so the animal spends a lot of energy to digest them. For this reason, you need to recover and sleep almost
all day.

And you, do you sleep a lot or a little? According to your sleep schedule, which animal would you like to be? Tell us your answers in the comments.