Cat-napping, Bull-dozing, and Sleeping with Fishes Quiz

Answer: He is lying down.

Zebra, like all equine animals, almost always sleep standing up. Also, unlike humans, they do not lie down and snuggle each other. Sleeping in this position in the wild would be too dangerous, as the zebra is a prey animal for lions and other predators.

The zebra in this picture was probably born and raised in a zoo, or taken in the wild at a very young age and never had to worry about being attacked. In the wild, zebra sleep standing up, in the middle of the herd, with other members of the herd standing guard.

They are most likely to sleep during the day, when predators are easier to spot. Elephants also sleep standing up because laying down puts pressure on their lungs, making it difficult to breathe. And while zebras may sleep standing up, I do not recommend that you try to do it yourself. I am pretty sure that it will not work.

Answer: False

Many people confuse hibernation with sleep when really they are not the same. Hibernation is actually a state of torpor, a period of decreased metabolic activity and usually, reduced temperature; it is an activity which allows animals to live through periods when the availability of food is drastically reduced. Animals that are hibernating will interrupt the hibernation cycle in order to sleep, and they will do this multiple times during the hibernation cycle.

While many people associate hibernation with bears, there are many animals that hibernate including some species of badgers, bats, mice, and even lemurs.

Answer: In the water

Hippos usually sleep in the water; to sleep on land would simply be too dangerous. They have a sleep adaptation that allows them to bob to the surface of the water to breathe and sink back down, all without waking up. Hippos sleep between 7-10 hours a day, usually all at one time. Accidentally waking a sleeping hippo can be very dangerous as they are likely to attack whoever or whatever woke them up.

The old saying that "it is best to let a sleeping dog lie", should probably be "it is best to let a sleeping hippo lie".

Answer: Body position

When domestic cats sleep, it is easy to tell if they are in deep sleep or just taking a quick nap by looking at their body position. The cat in this photo is in deep sleep, demonstrated by the fact that it is all curled up. When the cat is just dozing he will position himself so that he can wake up and react to any stimulus quickly. If they are only going to doze they will do so in a position similar to the Sphinx of Giza.

When engaging in deep sleep, they tend to go back and forth between actual deep sleep and dozing over and over until they wake up.

As with many animals, babies and older cats will need more sleep than a healthy adult in their prime.

Answer: False

The idea that sloths sleep twenty hours a day is simply a myth. They will remain in the same position that they were sleeping in for up to five hours at a time, simply as a defense mechanism. In 2012, the Max Planck Institute of Ornithology released their findings on the sleep patterns of the sloth showing that sloths sleep only about ten hours a day. Depending on the sub-species, they may be prone to sleep during the day (nocturnal) or apt to sleep at night (diurnal).

The king of sleepers is probably the koala, which sleeps twice as many hours every day, usually between 20-22 hours.

Answer: To regulate his body temperature

The cold-blooded crocodile, and indeed all reptiles, need assistance from their environment to control their body temperature. Because crocodiles do not have sweat glands, they release excess heat through their mouths. It is for this reason that they sleep with their mouths open. Crocodiles sleep usually occurs during the day as they are more active at night, but an occasional short evening nap is not out of the question.

Although the crocodile spends a lot of time in the water, sleep generally occurs on the river bank. Crocodiles sleep very lightly, as do most reptiles, possibly as a survival tactic. Reptiles in general do not appear to engage in REM sleep, so dreaming is unlikely, but not impossible.

Answer: Running in a maze

Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have shown that laboratory rats dream about running a maze, among other things. While sleeping, rats were hooked to a device that measured the firing of hippocampus neurons. The same firing patterns appeared that appeared when the rat was actually running a maze.

As the hippocampus is the part of the brain involved in memory, the scientists deduced that the sleeping rats were dreaming about their previous experience of running in a maze. The correlation was so exact that scientists said they could place the precise location in the maze that the rat was dreaming about at any given time. Does this mean that lions dream about hunting zebra, or dogs dream about playing catch? The answer is unknown, but sleep studies are being done all over the world, and we learn something new every year.

Answer: Carnivore

As a general rule, carnivores need the most sleep. Many herbivores, especially those who graze, spend a lot of time in a drowsy state that does not require a lot of energy. This low level of activity is one reason herbivores need the least sleep of the three options. Carnivores, while awake, spend a lot of time and energy on tracking, killing, and eating their prey.

Answer: Panting

Panting is used to help a dog cool down and is not a behavior seen in a sleeping dog. Instead, sleeping dogs display an array of funny behaviors that are believed to be indicative of what they are dreaming about. The leg movements are usually seen in a dog that is dreaming about running; a twitching nose indicates a dog is dreaming about sniffing/smelling something.

The eye movement under closed lids shows that the dog is experiencing REM sleep, which is connected to both dreaming and memories. Watch your pet the next time they are asleep and see if you can figure out what or who your doggie is dreaming about. Sometimes, watching your pet dog sleeping can simply be hilarious.

Answer: For most sharks this is not true, but very little is known about sharks and sleep.

Sharks do sleep, albeit in different manner than most animals. It is a myth that they never sleep, or that they will drown if they do not swim constantly. Instead, they do not display REM sleep, but appear to engage in a process known as sleep swimming. One theory of how they sleep is that they use the spinal cord for neurological activities while the brain sleeps.

Another theory is that they engage in unihemispheric sleep, which involves one side of the brain sleeping while the other side remains awake.

As there are so many different types of sharks, all of these theories may be correct to varying degrees. There are 12 species of shark which constantly need to swim not to drown, so-called ram ventilators. If they sleep or not remains yet to be seen, but they do need to move.

The sleep patterns of sharks are actually poorly understood due to the high degree of difficulty in studying the activity in the wild.