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☆ Chinstrap penguins take thousands of 4-second naps a day so they can stay alert and guard their newborns around-the-clock, researchers say
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-04 | by ( Christina Larson | Associated Press | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Chinstrap penguins take catnaps instead sleeping for a long period of time, researchers found. Chinstrap penguins in Antarctica need to guard their eggs and chicks around-the-clock in crowded, noisy colonies. Chinstrap penguins, named for the thin line of black facial feathers resembling a chinstrap, usually lay their eggs in pebble nests in November. For the first time, the scientists tracked the sleeping behavior of chinstrap penguins in an Antarctic breeding colony by attaching sensors that measure brain waves. "For these penguins, microsleeps have some restorative functions — if not, they could not endure," he said.

Persons: —, Niels Rattenborg, Max Planck, Chinstrap, King, King George Island, Won Young Lee, Paul, Antoine Libourel, Daniel Paranhos Zitterbart Organizations: Service, WASHINGTON, Max, Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, Korean Polar Research, Neuroscience Research, of Lyon, Penguins, Oceanographic, Associated Press Health, Science Department, Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science, Educational Media Group, AP Locations: Germany, King George, Antarctica, France, Massachusetts

☆ Chinstrap penguins survive on more than 10,000 naps a day, study finds
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-01 | by ( Amarachi Orie | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —The art of nodding off appears to have been mastered by breeding chinstrap penguins, who take more than 10,000 naps a day, with each nap lasting an average of four seconds, according to a new study. They observed that the penguins in the colony engaged in more than 600 bouts of microsleep an hour. A 1986 study found captive, nonbreeding emperor penguins to have fragmented sleep called “drowsiness,” which also resembles the microsleep pattern of the breeding chinstrap penguins. He added that through these short bursts of sleep the penguins could “sleep and remain vigilant” while incubating. “I think that’s why it’s important to study sleep.

Persons: King George Island, ecophysiologist Paul, Antoine Libourel, ” Libourel, Federico Anfitti, Libourel, “, they’d, ”, Christian Harding, Vladyslav Organizations: CNN, Neuroscience Research, of Lyon, University of California, University of Oxford Locations: France, South Korea, Germany, Antarctica, “, microsleeps, San Diego

☆ Penguins Take Thousands of Naps Every Day
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Carl Zimmer | More About Carl Zimmer | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Penguins are champion power nappers. Over the course of a single day, they fall asleep thousands of times, each bout a few seconds long, a new study has found. Although animals have a wide range of sleeping styles, penguins easily take the record for fragmented sleeping. “It’s really unusual,” said Paul-Antoine Libourel, a neuroscientist at the Neuroscience Research Center of Lyon in France who helped make the discovery. The science of sleep got its start in the early 1900s when researchers used scalp electrodes to discover that people produce slow brain waves when dozing.

Persons: “, ”, Paul, Antoine Libourel Organizations: Penguins, Neuroscience Research, of Lyon Locations: France

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's a challenge for all new parents: Getting enough sleep while keeping a close eye on their newborns. For some penguins, it means thousands of mini-catnaps a day, researchers discovered. Chinstrap penguins in Antarctica need to guard their eggs and chicks around-the-clock in crowded, noisy colonies. These short “microsleeps,” totaling around 11 hours per day, appear to be enough to keep the parents going for weeks. “For these penguins, microsleeps have some restorative functions — if not, they could not endure,” he said.

Persons: —, ”, Niels Rattenborg, Max Planck, “, King, King George Island, Won Young Lee, Paul, Antoine Libourel, Daniel Paranhos Zitterbart Organizations: WASHINGTON, Max, Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, Korean Polar Research, Neuroscience Research, of Lyon, “ Penguins, Oceanographic, Associated Press Health, Science Department, Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science, Educational Media Group, AP Locations: Germany, King George, Antarctica, France, Massachusetts

☆ Extreme sleep behavior documented in cute Antarctic chinstrap penguins
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Guarding their nests is serious business for these medium-sized penguins, with predatory seabirds called brown skuas on the prowl. But this species, scientists said on Thursday, has devised an ingenious way of getting sufficient sleep without compromising vigilance. The researchers documented extreme sleep behavior in these flightless birds. "Penguins do not display any obvious negative consequence of sleep fragmentation," Libourel said. During incubation, skuas prey on penguin eggs, particularly on a colony's periphery.

Persons: chinstraps, ecophysiologist Paul, Antoine Libourel, Won Young Lee, George Island, Libourel, Lee, Will Dunham, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: Lyon Neuroscience Research, Korea Polar Research, GPS, Penguins, Thomson Locations: Lyon, France, Korea, Incheon, Washington

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