![]() This sleeping pattern-which dolphins share with other cetaceans, manatees, eared seals and some birds-is called unihemispheric slow wave sleep, a deep state of sleep in which rapid eye movement or REM sleep does not occur. “ Dolphins are basically alert 24 hours a day for their entire lives,” Siegal says. This enables dolphins to sleep with one eye open, looking for predators. Sleeping with half a brainĭolphins, meanwhile, can stay alert with half of their brain while the other half can fall into a deep sleep. The apes’ cognitive abilities, the study says, may improve on the day following that longer, deeper sleep. A 2015 study showed that orangutans do, indeed, sleep better than their baboon cousins. Being able to lay down, away from the dangers of predators and other distractions allowed them to sleep longer, more securely, and more deeply. When apes started getting bigger, the branches they once slept on could no longer hold their weight-so they started building something that would. Monkeys have to balance on hard branches where they are easily awakened by potential danger or other monkeys-which is helpful to them but not good for extended sleep. The reason great apes have such long, luxurious sleep compared to the fitful, shorter sleeps of their monkey cousins has to do with those sleeping platforms. Dogs have wake-sleep cycles of about 83 minutes and get a little more than 10 and a half hours of sleep per 24-hour cycle. ![]() In some other primates, as in most mammals, sleep is polyphasic, with several alternating periods of sleep and activity in a 24-hour cycle. Gorillas sleep for 12 hours but orangutans get around the same eight hours that humans do. Bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans all also build sleeping platforms in trees, away from predators and insects, a jungle version of a bed. Humans, like all other great apes, are monophasic sleepers, meaning we sleep in one long interval during a 24-hour period. ![]() These variations include duration and depth of sleep, and even how it works in the brain.įrom dogs that doze off and on all day to dolphins that sleep using only half their brains, here’s a look at the many different ways that animals sleep. Most animals sleep, too, says Jerome Siegel, a psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles, but in ways that are just about as varied as the animal kingdom itself. It’s not known why we need it but we do-and an hour more or less of it can make your day either great or grumpy. For humans, sleep is a necessity, a mystery, and a luxury.
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