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Related: About this forumThis is how sperm whales sleep.
Robert T. Gonzalez
Ever fallen asleep standing up? Then you know what it's like to snooze like a sperm whale.
This image, captured by photographer Magnus Lundgren for Wild Wonders of Europe, is actually a few years old, but it highlights an interesting bit of cetacean neuroscience that's definitely worth sharing, and explaining in greater detail. Until just a few years ago, it was thought that sperm whales, like other cetaceans, only allowed one side of their brain to rest at a time, "keeping one eye open," as it were, in order to do "important things that require physical activity, such as coming to the surface to breathe or avoid predators," explains Nature's Matt Kaplan. "They never fully let their guard down."
But in 2008, a team of researchers off the coast of northern Chile happened upon a pod of vertically bobbing sperm whales that seemed completely oblivious to its presence. Not a single whale responded to the team's boat until one of them was accidentally nudged, at which point it awoke and fled, along with the rest of the group. The team's findings suggest that, unlike other cetaceans, sperm whales appear to enter short, but periodic, bouts of sleep throughout the day an observation that Kaplan says could hint that sperm-whales are actually "the least sleep-dependent mammals known."
http://io9.com/5932354/this-is-how-sperm-whales-sleep-yes-really
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This is how sperm whales sleep. (Original Post)
n2doc
Aug 2012
OP
arcane1
(38,613 posts)1. Neat! I never knew about the half-the-brain-at-a-time thing either
And they're cute!
Callmecrazy
(3,065 posts)6. Horses do the half-brain thing too.
And when in groups one will always be awake keeping watch.
surrealAmerican
(11,358 posts)2. They're so cute when they're sleeping.
Thanks for this. k&r
roguevalley
(40,656 posts)3. aren't they though? Very cute
KG
(28,751 posts)5. hehehhehhh. they said 'sperm', hehhehheh
Solly Mack
(90,758 posts)7. Cool!
Judi Lynn
(160,452 posts)8. Amazing, and wonderful. If only one could hug a buncha sleepy whales! n/t
Scuba
(53,475 posts)9. Very cool, thanks for posting!!!
irisblue
(32,932 posts)10. way cool!
thanks...I learn so many interedting thingd on DU.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)11. Maybe they laugh at how we sleep?
I mean, weightless has got to be way better on the body...
n/t