Animals with unusual sleeping habits

We humans in this modern fast age of technology hardly find time for nap but we do enjoy these occasional naps. However for wild animals napping is not a luxury that they can afford facing all the predatory and unforeseen natural calamities. Still these animals do need a nap or two in a day but to counter the problems they have come up with some unusual sleeping habits. Some of these unusual sleeping habits are as follows.

Sea Otters:-

Where there is water, there sea otters will be napping. To keep off their land based predators they float on their back in water and to avoid drifting away with water current they often wrap themselves up in seaweed. Sometimes more than 100 sea otters cover themselves with seaweeds to take a combined nap. This gathering is often referred as Otter Raft. While some sea otters also join hands with each other to keep them together while they snooze.

Giraffe:-

Giraffe has an extremely small napping window. They only take 5 minutes worth of nap at any given time and total of 30 minutes sleep whole day. Due to their large height and living in open plains of Africa they are at constant risk of being hunted from predators. Due to this their nap intervals are so minuscule and they nap by sitting down and placing their heads on their backs while other times they just sleep  while standing up to be ready to run when facing danger.

Dolphin:-

Most of the animals do not have to think to breathe during sleep. However the case is opposite for dolphins as they have to consciously think to breath even during their sleep. Due to this reason they only shut off half of their brain whilst sleeping and also keep one of their eyes open. This sleeping pattern is known as Uni hemispheric Sleep. This also prevents them from drowning as well as keeps them on alert from any encroaching predators.

Meerkats:-

Meerkats live in hierarchical societies led by Alpha males and females. They are one of the tight knit animal societies in the world. When sleeping, the alphas are kept in the middle of a large Meerkat cuddling sleeping group. This keeps alphas far away from any danger.

Walrus:-

Walrus have the ability to take a nap on both land and in water. For land they just come out and lay down on ground to sleep. For sleeping in water they keep their heads stick out of the water by filling the elastic pouches called Pharyngeal Pouches with air. These pouches are located on both sides of heir oesophagus to perfectly balance their buoyant body in water and head out of water.