A Guide to How Many Hours Different Animals Sleep a Day

Sleep is an important part of almost any living organism’s life. It allows the body to recover and rest, and maintain the health of the body and mind. But if a human needs at least 7 hours of sleep to get a good rest, some animals need much less, or much more — depending on the environment and their lifestyle.

5-Minute Crafts would like to tell you about which animals can go without sleep for a long time, and which animals, on the contrary, spend most of their life sleeping.

• Giraffes, like some other herbivores, sleep standing up. This way, they protect themselves from predators and, in the case of a sudden attack, they can run away without wasting time. Giraffes sleep a total of about 2 hours a day at 10-minute intervals.
• The African elephant sleeps only 2-3 hours a day, in short intervals, usually standing up. If necessary, elephants can stay awake for a very long time — they can do without sleep for up to 46 hours.
• Deer sleep 3 hours a day. They can rest both lying down and standing up but they are always alert.
• Goats sleep about 5 hours a day, cows sleep 4 hours, and horses sleep even less, only about 3 hours. By the way, horses are able to dream just like humans.
• The average dog sleeps 12 to 14 hours a day. Puppies can sleep 18 to 20 hours a day.
• Although squirrels hibernate through the winter, they sleep about 15 hours a day even during their active season.
• Domestic cats sleep an average of 15–16 hours a day, while tigers sleep up to 20 hours, resting after hunting.
• Lemurs spend most of their time in trees and sleep about 16 hours a day.
• Shrews have a life expectancy of about 4 years, and during this time they sleep about 16 hours a day.

• Despite the fact that the body of armadillos is surrounded by a strong shell, they prefer to dig burrows and hide there for 16–18 hours. It’s believed that during this time armadillos are asleep and, possibly, have a snack from time to time.
• One of the laziest snakes is the python. It’s able to sleep for 18 hours at a time: it hunts at night, and during the day it retreats to a safe place to rest.
• When awake, ferrets are very active, sociable, and playful. But this does not prevent them from sleeping 18 hours a day.
• Agile opossums sleep about 19 hours a day.
• Sloths can sleep up to 20 hours a day hanging from a tree or curling into a ball on a branch. However, the average sleep time of sloths in the wild is 10 hours or less.
• Bats are nocturnal, but this doesn’t mean that they are constantly awake after dark. The little brown bat actively hunts for several hours at night and then returns to its shelter to fall asleep again. In total, it sleeps about 20 hours a day.
• Koalas sleep 18 to 22 hours a day, and while awake they chew on eucalyptus leaves almost the whole time. These bears love eucalyptus so much that they store leaves inside their cheeks to snack on them while they sleep.