The Big Sleep

Today, we are going to look at the sleep pattern of two animals in the Savanna: the giraffe and the lion. I will spare you my singing of "the lion sleeps toniiiiiiiight..." Let's go straight to the heart of our subject.

Lions do sleep a lot: they can sleep up to 20 hours a day! I guess it's the priviledge of the king. One might wonder: how do they get anything done? Well, lions do not have busy lives and do not do much besides hunting, eating and sometimes mating. Male lions enjoy even more sleep than the female lions: only the latter hunt while the former doze in the savanna.

Giraffes, on the contrary sleep very little: only 1,5 to 2 hours a day, and it's not even straight forward sleep. They fall asleep deeply for only 5 minutes- these naps, added together, make the giraffe's daily sleep count. There is a very good reason for that: giraffes lie down to sleep and their long leggs and necks make it really hard to stand back up. So if they are attacked during their sleep, they have very little chance to make an escape. And when a giraffe falls asleep, other members of the herd stand guard.

That is maybe why the lions sleep so much: he knows no animal in its right mind would dare to attack the king while he sleeps.