You are here

Animals Surviving Without Sleep?

Submitted by lgarneau on Wed, 03/06/2019 - 14:33

There is an outstanding question posed by scientists: Can any animal survive without sleep? The facts are, scientists have not been able to truly find a sleepless animal but are not convinced that sleep is necessary for survival. A scientist conducted the first sleep-deprivation experiment in animals (ethical? definitely not.) The scientist kept puppies continuously awake and found that they died after a few days of sleep deprivation. Similar studies were performed on rodents and cockroaches and they all had similarly fatal results. Scientists, however, do know that multiple species can get very short amounts of sleep and be okay. For example, some flies hardly sleep, some averaging 72 minutes of sleep per day.

Post: