Which animal sleeps the most? Who sleeps the least?

Human beings spend around a third of their lives sleeping. It may seem like a lot. However, it is far from holding the palm of the biggest sleeper in the animal world. Find out which animals sleep the most and which need very little sleep.

All animals need rest at one time or another. And some, a little – a lot – more than others. And contrary to what one might think neither the dormouse, nor the groundhog nor even the lazy are the animals that sleep the most. The latter only spends 60% of his time to sleep.

The biggest sleeper animals on the planet

Among the animals that sleep the most, we can cite the koala, the bat and the armadillo giant. Note that the Lion and the tiger They are also said to be animals that sleep a lot, but if they spend most of their elongated time, they are not among the top 3 sleeping animals.

The biggest sleepers are therefore:

  • The koala; he can sleep up to 22 hours a day! A real performance. The rest of the time, he eats only leaveseucalyptus. A diet that is sufficient for its metabolism but which brings him littleenergy and requires long hours of digestion.

  • The bat ; she does open theeye only four short hours a day … or rather a night, since she then takes advantage of it to hunt insects nocturnal which it feeds on.

  • The giant armadillo; he rests no less than 18 hours a day. Just like theopossum and the python.

For comparison, know that the human baby needs about 16 hours of sleep per day, the domestic cat between 12 and 4 p.m. and the dog between 12 and 2 p.m.

The animals that sleep the least

At the other end of the ranking, there are animals that sleep incredibly little like the elephant and the horse and, above all, the giraffe.

The elephant and the horse only sleep around two to three hours a day. But the palm of the animal that sleeps the least goes to giraffe who sleeps an average of two hours a day. She can even be content with half an hour of sleep and a few minutes of deep sleep per day. Another peculiarity of these animals: they generally sleep upright and only need to lie down to enter paradoxical sleep.

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Archeozoology: the link between humans and animals throughout history Archaeozoology is at the crossroads of zoology and archeology. This hybrid discipline is also close to paleozoology on several aspects. Come and meet Ginette Auxiette, archaeozoologist at Inrap (National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research), who specializes in the links between humans and animals throughout history.

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