FILE PHOTO: A chinstrap penguin jumps into the water at Snow Island, Antarctica, January 30, 2020. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino/File Photo
21:30, 17 December 2023
The “ApNews” portal informs that penguins are very old parents. Research shows that penguin parents only sleep for a few seconds at a time to protect their babies.
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It is a challenge for all parents – to get a good night’s sleep while taking care of the newborn. For penguins, this means thousands of micro-sleeps a day.
The study found that Antarctic penguins must guard their eggs and penguin chicks around the clock. That is why they fall asleep for a short time thousands of times every day. This moment lasts about four seconds. This is enough to keep the penguin awake.
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The short micro-sleeps, with a total duration of about 11 hours a day, are quite enough for the penguin parents to be able to function fully for weeks.
“These penguins look like sleepy drivers who blink their eyes open and shut down. They do this 24 hours a day for weeks on end,” explains sleep researcher Neil Rattenborg.
“It’s amazing how penguins are able to function and raise babies,” the researcher expresses his admiration.
Penguins usually lay eggs in pebble nests in November. Then one of the penguin parents stays to guard and take care of the eggs, while the other goes to provide food for the family.
Parents must always be alert and cautious, as they must be able to protect the eggs from predators and thieves.
For the first time, scientists studied the sleep behavior of penguins by attaching sensors that measure brain waves. They collected data on 14 adult penguins for 11 consecutive days on King George Island off the coast of Antarctica.
The idea for the study came when Won Young Lee, a biologist at the Korea Institute of Polar Research, noticed that the penguins often blinked their eyes and nodded visibly during his days of observation. However, the team of scientists had to perform brain wave recordings to confirm that the penguins were actually sleeping.
Penguin microsleeps have great restorative functions, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to survive.
The researchers did not collect sleep data outside of the breeding season, but they hypothesize that penguins may sleep for longer periods of time at other times of the year.
The researchers explain that it is not yet known whether such micro-sleeps have equivalent properties and value as long-term sleep. So far, the special sleeping habits of some other animals have been recorded.
For example, frigatebirds can sleep half their brain at a time. Northern elephants, on the other hand, can take a nap for 10 or 15 minutes during a deep dive. However, penguin microsleep is a new phenomenon.
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“Penguins live in a high-stress environment. They reproduce in crowded colonies, and at the same time you have predators,” said Daniel Paranjos Zitterbart, a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He emphasizes that this is why “Microsleep is a ‘wonderful adaptation’ that ensures near-constant alertness.”
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2023-12-17 19:40:32
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