# Has any part of the natural world adapted to the structure of a week?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-part-of-the-natural-world-adapted-to-the-structure-of-a-week/989932>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 11, 2023, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-part-of-the-natural-world-adapted-to-the-structure-of-a-week/989932 "2023-09-11T13:05:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\
**Post date:** [September 11, 2023, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-part-of-the-natural-world-adapted-to-the-structure-of-a-week/989932/1 "2023-09-11T13:05:21Z")

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I’m thinking of animals or even plants changing their behaviour at weekends, but any other interpretation of the question would be equally interesting. Might urban animals behave differently in a rush hour for instance?

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**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\
**Post date:** [September 11, 2023, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-part-of-the-natural-world-adapted-to-the-structure-of-a-week/989932/2 "2023-09-11T13:15:46Z")

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Look at the fourth post here, there are links to numerous studies:

> **[Can wild animals tell days of the week?](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/can-wild-animals-tell-days-of-the-week/28610/5)**
>
> Not days of the week no, but cycles of activity yes, in some animals, but not all. This idea is called the "weekend effect hypothesis”, named after the 1998 Stalmaster & Kaiser paper titled Effects of Recreational Activity on Wintering Bald...

Also this recent paper from a study in Utah, although the results aren’t very exciting.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347223000313](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347223000313)

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**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\
**Post date:** [September 11, 2023, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-part-of-the-natural-world-adapted-to-the-structure-of-a-week/989932/3 "2023-09-11T13:37:22Z")

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The poster on that board was certainly able to pose the question in a better way than I was able to. Damn my terrible something or other thingy.

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**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [September 11, 2023, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-part-of-the-natural-world-adapted-to-the-structure-of-a-week/989932/4 "2023-09-11T14:35:11Z")

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Cut yourself some slack, man! It’s _real_ hard to type a coherent question wearing a space suit.