Information sourced from ScienceNewsExplores.
"Didn't I tell you last time?
"What's wrong! There's a follow-up!"
"It's so explosive! It went to question the male!
"And what's the matter, you're not going to sleep."
Hatband penguin
One glance and you'll know why Pygoscelis antarcticus is called this homely name. These noisy creatures are probably the most abundant penguin species, with almost 16 million of them in the world, mainly found on the Antarctic Peninsula and the islands of the South Atlantic.
Although the types of broken things that penguins need to worry about are less than one-ten-thousandth of those of vulnerable humans, the pressure they bear is even greater, after all, it is directly related to survival. When nesting, the resident penguins must take care of their eggs, be wary of predators such as skuas, keep an eye out for other cap-banded penguins, as some of the poorest ones will try to steal material from other geese's nests, while their partners will go on a multi-day foraging trip to ensure that they not only catch enough food, but also make sure they do not become food.
When the foraging partner returns, the couple will switch roles and continue with their own exhausted goose life.
How can you still sleep in such an environment? As soon as you sleep, you will be caught up by other geese! But it is impossible not to sleep, right? There are more difficulties than solutions. For this reason, the canband penguin has evolved a very outrageous sleep pattern, so outrageous that I would be considered a marketing account by reading the title.
Monitor penguins sleeping
Lee Won-sang, a biologist at the Polar Research Institute in South Korea, is studying how an animal's habitat affects their behavior. He noticed that the hatband penguins nesting on King George Island in Antarctica had a strange sleeping behavior, they always seemed to be dozing off, very suddenly, like when pooping, the takeaway came, and quickly clipped off to get it.
Thinking of the behavior of some seabirds sneaking into their sleep on long flights, he wondered if the bonnet-banded penguins had any strange sleeping habits. So he teamed up with a team led by Paul-Antoine Librell of the Centre for Neuroscience Research in Lyon to install sleep recorders and GPS on 14 hooded penguins in a habitat on King George Island, which records the electrical activity of the brain and neck muscles to detect their sleep.
Through the records, the research team found that the hatband penguin's dozing ability has reached its peak!
These chubby penguins fall asleep thousands or even tens of thousands of times a day, but only for a few seconds at a time. Sometimes, the bonnet-banded penguin will put half of its brain to sleep first, and the other half will stay awake, which is not new, the so-called "unihemisphere chronic sleep", this technique is widely used in many birds and mammals, such as dolphins, to prevent themselves from drowning.
All of these naps add up to more than 11 hours of sleep per half of their brains per day!
"You slept so well"
Neuroscientist Jerome J. Brown of the University of California, Los Angeles According to Jerome Siegel, many animals also have strange sleep patterns, usually when they need to be vigilant. Mother killer whales and dolphins can stay awake for a month after giving birth without any adverse effects, and a two-hour nap a day is enough for northern elephant seals.
But the level of abstraction like the Hatband Penguin is rare.
The research team believes that the sleeping patterns of the cannibal penguins may be to balance the brain's need for rest and the need for parenting. After all, predators patrol penguin colonies, and penguin colonies are always in a mess of things, while at the same time, they need to get enough sleep. Hatband penguins just thought of it, so let's cut the sleeping time! Everyone can do this kind of thing, right?
The 14 penguins monitored by the research team were functioning well and were able to survive and raise their young. It is not yet known whether penguins' sleep patterns change after the breeding season, and it is not clear how they achieve it, it is too early to unlock this information, come back next time~ I hope researchers continue to listen ~ feel ~ think ~
Li Yuanshang said that there seems to be a big difference in sleep between different species. By studying how animals get sleep, researchers can understand how sleep evolved to give the brain the rest it needs, he said. This is also very helpful for humans, after all, if the lack of sleep in humans is continuous, it can affect cognitive function and may even trigger neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.