The animal kingdom is full of curiosities and specimens of all kinds. Although for humans sleep is very important for life, there are many animals that never sleep or do very little during their lives.
The average rest of a human is approximately 7 to 9 hours a day , something unthinkable for many of these animals that either never sleep throughout their lives, or need very little to rest throughout the day.
Considering that for the human race, sleeping is the only way to regain energy, how can there be animals that never sleep? What they really do is rest in small periods of time and in a very superficial way, nothing compared to the phases of a human’s sleep.
Giraffe
They usually live in the wild in the African savannah, so sleeping is a luxury that they cannot afford due to the risk of being attacked by predators of all kinds.
The sleeping periods of a giraffe are very short , two hours at most a day, divided into bands of about ten minutes. These ten minutes are not even deep as they are alert to a possible attack.
Horses and donkeys
Although they are classified as animals that never sleep, the truth is that they do have their moment of rest of at least three hours to recharge.
It is necessary to differentiate between domesticated horses and donkeys and wild ones. The latter also use a very superficial rest to stay alert to any danger.
White shark
The organism of sharks is really fascinating. The problem of this animal species is not the attacks of predators, there is not much living being that dares with the white shark , but its problem to rest little is another.
Sharks breathe through gills, but do not have gills, bony structures that protect the gills. With this, they must remain in motion to come out from time to time to the surface and breathe, so they cannot sleep to stay alert and go up to breathe.
They sleep in a very light state of sleep when the tides carry them away but with a part of their brain awake to go to the surface.
Dolphins
The dolphin is the aquatic mammal that sleeps the least. They breathe through lungs and therefore must surface to get the necessary air. Their rest, therefore, is very limited. What they do is disconnect one hemisphere of their brain to sleep – that’s why they have one eye open and one closed – while leaving another one of them alert so as not to forget to go out for air.
