Among mammals, the most sleepy animal is the koala (koala), which spends nearly 22 hours a day in sleep, and the remaining 2 hours in eating, which is much more "lazy" than pigs, after all, pigs only need 8-10 hours of sleep a day, so koalas perfectly interpret what it means to "eat and sleep, sleep and eat".
So, who is the least sleepy animal among mammals? The answer is okapi, which sleeps about 12 times a day for about 5 minutes each time, that isOkapi only sleeps about 1 hour a day
So,Why do okapi only sleep 60 minutes a day? As the only surviving close relative of the giraffe, what kind of animal is the okapi? Let's find out.
Okapi. As early as the end of the 19th century, the British-American explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley (Sir Henry Morton Stanley) accidentally discovered a strange animal in the rainforest of eastern Congo while exploring Africa.
At the time, he thought it was the product of a cross between a giraffe and a zebra, but when he made the description of the animal public, people didn't believe it until a few years later, when a taxidermy was brought back to Europe, that people believed that this amazing creature really existed.
However, because its appearance is closer to that of equidae, zoologists originally placed it in the genus Edondia based on its appearance, in the same genus as horses and donkeys. With the different unearthing of some fossils, zoologists found that it was very similar to the early giraffe after comparing it with the early giraffe, so the okapi was put into the giraffe family, but because it is too different from the giraffe, it is a separate genus under the giraffe family - okapi.
The okapi is the most direct evidence of the evolution of the giraffe, and it shares a common ancestor with the giraffe, but in later evolution, the neck and legs of the giraffe became longer and longer, to occupy the ecological niche of the higher plants, and the okapi changed little and little.
The main reason why they did not evolve like giraffes is that giraffes have been living here, and the densest places for herbivores in Africa are in the savannah, not in the rainforest, so they can survive even if they don't need to be like giraffes.
Although the okapi is not as tall as a giraffe, it is also a large herbivore, with an average adult okapi being 2About 2 meters, the average shoulder height is 18 meters, with an average weight of 220 kilograms, in addition to its head like a giraffe, its tongue is also very similar, it has a blue-purple tongue up to 30 centimeters long, which can flexibly roll and eat leaves, as for why it is blue-purple, mainly because its head is too far away from the heart, and the position of the head is relatively high, and the oxygen carrying capacity is low when the blood is transported to the head.
However, the "standing still" in evolution has also caused problems, that is, they are overly dependent on the rainforest, once the rainforest is destroyed, the population will plummet, and the Congolese civil war has greatly affected them, so the okapi is now an endangered species.
Humans need to sleep at least 7 hours a day in order to be refreshed the next day, but this sleep time is actually relatively small among mammals. According to the scientists' research on the sleep time of a variety of mammals,Overall, the sleep time of animals decreases as they increase in sizeFor example, voles, golden bears, and Mongolian gerbils sleep between 10-15 hours a day, and when it comes to guinea pigs and rabbits, their sleep time range is between 5-10, and their sleep time range is between 3-5 hours, even if they are as big as horses, donkeys, giraffes, and Asian elephants.
According to the body size, the sleep time of the okapi should be about the same as that of horses and donkeys and other animals, but in fact, although the okapi sleeps about 12 nights, the average sleep is only 5 minutes, and this day is only 60 minutes, which is much less than the sleep time of African elephants. This has to do with the natural predators of the okapi.
Although the okapi is in the rainforest, there are few herbivores that compete with it, but there is a carnivore that threatens them, and it is the African leopard, although the African leopard not only inhabits the savannah, the rainforest is also one of their favorite habitats, far from its biggest rival, the lion, and the prey abundance is not bad, there are okapi, chimpanzees, gorillas, and various primates and birds on the trees.
Moreover, leopards in the rainforest are not as nocturnal as they are on the grasslands, they can be active day and night, and the most important thing is that the size of the okapi happens to be the leopard's favorite prey type, which makes the leopard the biggest natural enemy of the okapi.
In order to avoid the killing of leopards, the okapi evolved long, erect and able to rotate ears, the purpose of which is to capture some subtle sounds, but it is not enough to have ears, because the ability to capture the outside world will become worse when sleeping, so the okapi can only sleep for a short time and wake up quickly, so the 60 minutes of sleep a day is forced by natural enemies.
Okapi leaves some asphalt-like substances on its path when walking, so if you go to the rainforest to find okapi, you can find these footprints with "asphalt", and follow the footprints to find it, just like the white slime left by a snail crawling down.
Of course, this is not asphalt, but each foot of the okapi has a mucus secretion gland, these glands are the organs that secrete black substance, and when the okapi walks, the glands will continue to secrete, leaving black mucus on the footprints. However, the role of these asphalt-like mucus is not clear to zoologists until now.
It is speculated that it may be related to their marking of territory, as a solitary herbivore, the okapi has a certain sense of territory, so, these substances may be marking the territory, and some zoologists believe that this may be related to the fact that they are more likely to find a fixed route, the okapi is a very timid animal, their daily path is basically the same, but how to maintain a highly consistent route in the complex rainforest? It depends on the substances secreted by the glands in the feet.
Although it has been more than 100 years since the okapi was discovered, it has been very mysterious and rarely observed due to their very timid and cautious nature, coupled with their small number and relatively large rainforest habitat, from the end of the 50s of the 20th century to 2006, the official (Congo National Park) has published a total of two records of the discovery of okapi, therefore, there are many secrets about the okapi, and what we know about them is only the tip of the iceberg. **10,000 Fans Incentive Plan