What kind of sleeping position do you usually use?Not only you, but the animals also have their own preferred sleeping positions, and each one is more bizarre than the other!Some of them sleep standing on one leg, some sleep while flying, and some sleep with their mouths supporting their entire body ......
Next, let's take a look at the strange sleeping positions of the animals!
Sperm whale. Standing" sleeps.
Large sperm whales are toothed cetaceans, and instead of filtering seawater for food like baleen whales such as blue whales, they use their toothy mouths to bite. Interestingly, the sperm whale only has teeth in its lower jaw, and its upper jaw has holes that are just enough to fill these teeth.
The sperm whale's teeth are just enough to fit into the hole Source: WeallDeserveBetterblog
Therefore, the teeth of sperm whales can only serve the role of biting the prey, and cannot be chewed. Sperm whales are quite adept at diving, and they can dive to depths of several thousand meters, where they hunt large gun squid.
Thanks to this diving ability, sperm whales are able to achieve their special sleeping position - head up, tail down, "standing" to sleep in the water.
Sperm whale sleeping scene slightly eerie **youtube
While sleeping, the members of the entire sperm whale colony are like buds of tea suspended in a teacup. And there are studies that show that sperm whales are in about 71% of the time.
Unlike toothed cetaceans in captivity, which use half of their brains to stay awake, wild sperm whales may indeed be able to sleep deeply, as they do not respond to approaching observing vessels unless they touch their ......
No pad bees. Six-legged "acrobatics" in the air
When we think of bees, our first thought is the little ones flying among the flowers, and then you probably think of honey and beehives. However, the bees we farm, whether they are Western bees or Eastern honeybees, belong to the narrow sense of the bee, that is, insects of the genus Bee, there are only a dozen species, and these bees have large colonies and warm nests.
However, the broad definition of bees includes more than 12,000 species of the general family of bees, such as stingless bees, bumblebees, padless bees, etc., the size of these bee colonies is large and small, and some even have no colonies. This is the case of matless bees, which are solitary bees and get their name because they don't have interclaw pads on their feet to attach objects.
Usually lives alone, sleeps in a group Source: Facebook
In the wild, padless bees are very agile and fly fast, but they are not reckless. They are very cautious when resting. They will look for a branch of the right thickness and bite down so strong that they can bear the weight of their entire body. Next, they fold their six legs and rest in a state of acrobatic that is almost suspended in the air.
You can sleep with your mouth biting the rod **youtube
In fact, not only padless bees, but also a considerable number of bees will bite things with their paws while sleeping, but many bees are not as ethereal as the posture of padless bees and their close relatives. The general belief in this behavior is that the palate helps the insect to hold its body in place in case it "rolls out of bed" during sleep.
Sea otter. Seaweed** is super safe.
Sea otters are known for their cuteness, close relatives of weasels, and the most adapted to marine life among carnivorous mammals. Many people have the impression that sea otters are relatively small animals, however, this is mostly because their faces look a little cute, and it is possible that sea otters are confused with smaller otters.
I'm really not afraid of smashing my belly, hey, **youtube
While it is true that sea otters are relatively small among marine mammals, they are still the heaviest of the mustelidae, weighing 14-45 kilograms – some large male sea otters are even heavier than some adult girls.
Backstroke "sleep."
Sea otters prefer to live in groups, and they usually congregate into small groups called "rafts". "Raft" originally referred to any object that drifts along the water, and the word describes the characteristics of a colony of sea otters – they gather together, float on the surface of the sea with their bellies facing the sky, and drift with the waves, especially while sleeping.
Sleep hand in hand, throw it together, don't lose it?Source: Wikimedia Commons
However, in order to prevent themselves from accidentally drifting into the deep sea while sleeping, they sometimes use seaweed that grows from the bottom of the sea to make a simple ** of themselves.
Seaweed: Come on, buckle up **youtube
Sea otters are also a keystone species in their habitat. In the sea where sea otters live, large seaweed forms underwater forests that are home to a wide range of organisms. However, some sea urchins will feed on the basal part of the seaweed, causing them to drift away from the bottom of the sea, and die.
If the sea urchin overflows will cause ecological disaster, and the sea otter is not afraid of the sea urchin, which can be called a crunchy, so the sea otter can control the number of sea urchins and become a great contributor to maintaining the balance of this ecosystem.
Ostrich. Misunderstood for years.
Ostriches are currently the largest birds in the world, although they can't fly, but they run fast, their maximum speed can reach 70 kilometers per hour, even if you don't rush to run casually, you can run a speed of 30 kilometers per hour, not much slower than a car.
You chase me flash **BBC
There is a widespread misconception about ostriches that ostriches stick their heads in the sand and think they are hidden, but their bodies are still exposed, which is stupid. As a result, some people use the "ostrich mentality" to describe those who dare not face up to the problem and only know how to escape. It's true that ostriches have small brains and aren't very smart, but they're not stupid enough to do that.
People are obviously very elegant, but they want to be called stupid.
This may be due to miscalculations when observing ostriches from a distance, either from the sight of the ostrich sticking its head into the vegetation to feed, or because of some sleeping position of the ostrich.
Ostrich sleeps in a lot of positions, Oleg ILyamin et al. recorded as many as six postures of standing or sitting while observing the sleeping posture of the little ostrich. One of the most striking sleeping positions is the one in which the baby ostrich sits on its lap with its neck straight and its head on the ground.
Six sleeping positions of a baby ostrich Source: Ref. [1].
This sleeping state can also be observed in adult ostriches, which may have a camouflage effect in the open - due to the low head and neck, their feathers will look like a clump of desert plants, thus reducing the infestation of predators, which may help the ostrich to sleep soundly on its own, and the presence of its head on the ground is also good for detecting some danger through the shaking of the ground, but from a human perspective, it is a bit like burying your head in the sand.
A clump of grass growing in the desert?Source: Ref. [2].
In addition, there is another animal sleeping position that is very rare in nature. And guess who?
References: 1]. lyamin oi, kibalnikov as, siegel jm. 2021. sleep in ostrich chicks (struthio camelus). sleep j 44(5), 1-14.
2]. sauer efg, sauer ee. 1966. social beh**iour of the south african ostrich, .ostrich: journal of african ornithology 37:s1,183-191, doi: 10.1080/00306525.1966.9639797
3]. miller pjo, aoki k, luke e, rendell le, amano m. 2008. stereotypical resting beh**ior of the sperm whale. current biology 18, r22.
Written by |Ran Hao.
Section** Picture Worm Creativity.
WeChat edit |Not the end.
*The content represents the author's views only.
It does not represent the position of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
If you need it, please contact the original***
*:Natural science. Edit: kcollider