Northern elephant seals sleep as little as only two hours per day. Elephant seals swim at sea for months between brief breaks on shore. During those sea voyages, the seals sleep as little as less than two hours a day. They only sleep when there is little to no danger.
The short amount of sleep an elephant seal gets rivals the short amount of sleep an African elephant gets each day. “It’s important to map these extremes of [sleep behavior] across the animal kingdom,” says Jessica Kendall-Bar. Kendall-Bar studies marine mammals at the University of California in San Diego. Learning how much or how little sleep different animals get could help reveal why animals, including people, sleep at all. Knowing how seals catch their Z’s could also guide efforts to protect places where these animals sleep.
Sources
https://www.snexplores.org/article/northern-elephant-seals-snooze-only-two-hours-a-day-at-sea https://www.snexplores.org/article/northern-elephant-seals-snooze-only-two-hours-a-day-at-sea
The short amount of sleep an elephant seal gets rivals the short amount of sleep an African elephant gets each day. “It’s important to map these extremes of [sleep behavior] across the animal kingdom,” says Jessica Kendall-Bar. Kendall-Bar studies marine mammals at the University of California in San Diego. Learning how much or how little sleep different animals get could help reveal why animals, including people, sleep at all. Knowing how seals catch their Z’s could also guide efforts to protect places where these animals sleep.
Sources
https://www.snexplores.org/article/northern-elephant-seals-snooze-only-two-hours-a-day-at-sea https://www.snexplores.org/article/northern-elephant-seals-snooze-only-two-hours-a-day-at-sea