Bizarre Sleeping Habits of Animals

Humans need at least 8-hours of sleep to be able to rest and have sufficient strength for the next day. Over sleep or under

sleep will both lead to health problems, sooner or later. Animals too, need to sleep to stay healthy. With the thousands of

animal species there are those who have unusual way or habit of sleeping. Check this out.

1. Giraffe

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The giraffe has one of the shortest sleep requirements of any mammal, which is between 10 minutes and two hours

in a 24-hour period, averaging 1.9 hours per day

2. Brown Bat

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The brown bat, which can live up to 33 years, usually sleeps for 19 hours a day.

3. Bats

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Bats sleep upside down because their wings aren't really strong enough to launch them into the air from the ground;

hanging from the roof means they can just drop into flight. Another reason is because of the unique design of their talons;

bats use very little energy while hanging. The talons lock into place and the force of gravity does the rest. And lastly, gravity

is a fast accelerator, so bats can simply drop out of trouble should the need arise.

4. Fat-tailed Dwarf Lemur

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Fat-tailed Dwarf Lemur hibernates or estivates in a small cricket hollow for seven months of the year. It is the first tropical

primate in which hibernation has been demonstrated. The lemur does not control its body temperature while hibernating,

and if the tree hole in which it is sleeping is not well insulated, its body temperature fluctuates in accordance with the outside

temperature.

5. Guinea Baboon

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Guinea Baboons sleep on its heels on top of a tree. This helps them stay alert while asleep. Baboons have been also

observed yawning to threaten their enemies.

6. Dormouse

One distinct characteristic of a dormouse is hibernation. It can hibernate six months out of the year, or even longer if the

weather remains sufficiently cool, sometimes waking for brief periods to eat food they had previously stored nearby.

Hazel Dormouse

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The Hazel Dormouse, a species of Dormouse, can spend a lot of time sleeping by carefully balancing itself on the branch

of a tree safe in the knowledge that any quiver of the twig will wake it up immediately. They spend most of their waking hours

among the branches of trees looking for food. They will make long detours rather than come down to the ground and expose

themselves to danger.

7. Reptiles

Reptiles generally begin brumation in late fall. Brumation is an example of dormancy in reptiles that is similar to hibernation.

It differs from hibernation in the metabolic processes involved. They will often wake up to drink water and return to "sleep".

8. Frogs

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Hibernation is dormancy or "winter sleep" and estivation is the dormancy or "summer sleep" by certain animals. Frogs

are some of the best hibernators around. Northern leopard frogs, for example, pass the winter at the bottom of deeper

lakes, far beneath the ice. They settle quietly on the lake bottom in deep water. Frogs' bodies have some natural antifreeze

chemicals built into them and some species can survive being frozen solid with no heart beat or breathing for weeks at

a time.

9. Swainson's Thrush

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Swainson's Thrush, also called Olive-backed Thrush, is a medium-sized thrush that takes hundreds of naps during the day,

each of just a few seconds, while migrating, Migratory birds tends to function well on micro-naps.

10. Common Poorwill

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Common Poorwill is unique because it is the only bird known to go into "torpor" for extended periods (weeks to months).

It spends much of the winter inactive, concealed in piles of rocks. Such an extended period of torpor is close to a state of

hibernation, not known among other birds.

11. Albatross

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Albatrosses are known to sleep while flying even while cruising at the speed of 25mph. In addition, the Wandering

Albatross has a wingspan of nearly 12 ft or 3.7 m, the longest of any living bird.

12. Dolphin

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Dolphins and other large sea mammals keep one eye open and one half of the brain awake at all times to maintain

some amount of consciousness required to breathe and to keep a watch out for possible threats.  They sleep with only

one brain hemisphere in slow-wave sleep.

13. Dolphins are particularly unusual in their lack of need for sleep; a calf and its mother will have zero sleep for the first

few months of the baby's life.

14. Ducks

Ducks and most birds also keep one eye open and one half of the brain awake at all times. This is called unilateral eye

closure. This unusual sleeping technique allows these animals to stay alert to predators.

15. Mallards

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Mallards observed sleeping in a line will often post sentries on either end of the group, allowing those in the middle to

sleep more soundly.

Hope you enjoyed this. Thank you!

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