New parents can attest one of the first things to go is sleep. Apparently, this is similar in the animal kingdom. Researchers recently found that nesting chinstrap penguins have come up with a unique way of combating this.
According to a new study published in the journal Science, these adorable creatures will take up to 10,000 micro-naps a day, which adds up to 11 hours of sleep. Naps are a great way to catch up on some Zs. They also help the penguins avoid getting eaten by predators.
These naps only last four seconds but sure do add up. The study describes them as "seconds-long interruptions of wakefulness by eye closure and sleep-related brain activity," or microsleeps. Chinstrap penguins live in harsh conditions in Antarctica. They form colonies while nesting, for protection.
Scientists studied the penguins by inserting devices into the animals’ skulls. These measured brain waves and acted as a GPS, sharing their locations. They also filmed the birds to get visual data.
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Paul-Antoine Libourel, the study coauthor, is amazed by these creatures. He works as a researcher at the CNRS in the Neurosciences Research Center of Lyon, France. "Pretty much every study on sleeping birds discovers something new, something we didn't know about before," he mused.
