Constantly on the nod, chinstrap penguins catch seconds-long bursts of sleep 10,000 times per day

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Constantly on the nod, chinstrap penguins catch seconds-long bursts of sleep 10,000 times per day
So named because of the narrow band on their heads, these penguins catch slumber every second they can

By MATTHEW ROZSA
Staff Writer
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 4, 2023 6:15AM (EST)




(Salon) Nearly all animals need some form of sleep to survive, but not all of them sleep in the same ways as humans. Take chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus), the adorable two-foot-plus waddling birds named for the distinctive and dignified black stripes at the bottoms of their heads, which are indigenous to the islands and shores of the Southern Pacific and Antarctic Oceans.

Now a new study in the journal Science reveals that chinstrap penguins have a very unique way of sleeping. Instead of getting six-to-eight hours at night like humans, chinstrap penguins sleep thousands of times per day in four second spurts — but accumulate a daily 11 hours of sleep in the process.

Researchers from France, Germany and South Korea learned this by studying 14 chinstrap penguins sleep patterns with an electroencephalograph, which measures brain activity. While the chinstrap penguins swam in the ocean or nested on King George Island, which is near Antarctica, they regularly faced threats such as aggression from other penguins or predatory birds like the brown skua pursuing their eggs. As a result, sleeping for lengthy periods can be risky, so they evolved an ability to enter rest states in spurts of up to four seconds. This results in chinstrap penguins sleeping more than 10,000 times each day. As the authors concluded, "The investment in microsleeps by successfully breeding penguins suggests that the benefits of sleep can accrue incrementally."

Of course, just because the scientists proved that the penguins achieved some level of sleep during those four second bursts, the exact quality of the sleep is another matter entirely. It is entirely possible that the chinstrap penguins pay for their so-called "microsleeps" by not being fully restored when they wake up — just like humans who experience dementia-like cognitive ability when too sleep deprived. ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2023/12/04/constantly-on-the-nod-chinstrap-penguins-catch-seconds-long-bursts-of-sleep-10000-times-per-day/