Chinstrap Penguins Sleep in 4-Second Bursts, Study Reveals
Unique sleep pattern allows penguins to remain vigilant while fulfilling their sleep needs, accumulating 11 hours of sleep daily through over 10,000 microsleeps.
- Chinstrap penguins, native to the Southern Pacific and Antarctic Oceans, have a unique sleep pattern where they take thousands of microsleeps lasting about 4 seconds each, accumulating a total of 11 hours of sleep daily.
- Researchers from France, Germany, and South Korea studied 14 chinstrap penguins using an electroencephalograph to measure brain activity and found that these penguins sleep more than 10,000 times each day.
- Due to threats from other penguins and predatory birds, sleeping for extended periods can be risky for chinstrap penguins, leading to the evolution of their ability to enter rest states in short spurts.
- While the quality of sleep during these microsleeps is unclear, the researchers suggest that these microsleeps can fulfill at least some of the restorative functions of sleep.
- The researchers also noted that this pattern of sleep is unprecedented, even among penguins, and may provide an adaptive strategy for species requiring constant vigilance.
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