May-11-2009
Amazing dolphins don’t suffer from sleep deprivation!
Posted by Admin under Fun, Health, Insomnia, Sleep, Sleep Deprivation
Dolphins are amazing creatures!
New research has revealed that dolphins are able to put half of their brains to sleep while the other half remains conscious. This means they can rest while continuously returning to the surface for air and stay alert to predators.
Wouldn’t you love to learn this skill? Mums, can you imagine being able to get some rest while getting up to feed your hungry baby?
Anyway, I found this article fascinating and I hope you do too. Please let me know what you think.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/hscout/2009/05/06/hscout626519.html
This is fascinating as it cOULD be considered AS a next step in the evolution of sleep.
In relation to dolphins and sleep, that was also found…:
They had found that the whales spent about 7% of their time drifting inactive in shallow water. What they were doing or why they were doing it had been a mystery, but seeing footage from Rendells experience determined that the whales were sleeping.
Whales and dolphins have only ever been seen allowing one brain hemisphere to rest at a time, keeping one eye open. This is presumably because they need to do important things that require physical activity, such as coming to the surface to breathe or avoid predators. They never fully let their guard down.
But now Miller, Rendell and their colleagues report that sperm whales seem to sleep fully while drifting, either at the surface, or at 10 metres depth. Their naps seem to last for ten to fifteen minutes, during which time they do not breathe or move.
According to the report, if the whales are fully asleep while in the drifting mode, then they sleep very little: just 7% of the time. That contrasts sharply with smaller beluga and grey whales, which sleep for 32% and 41% of the time, respectively.
Such a meagre amount of sleep designates the sperm whales as the least sleep-dependent mammals known.
It seems to be that the bigger the mass of the mammal the less sleep they need… Elephants, for example, sleep only 3 hours a day…
Source: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/sperm-whales-could-be-the-least-sleep-dependent-mammals_10020024.html
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