# Sleep cycles in the animal kingdom

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-cycles-in-the-animal-kingdom/458588>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 2, 2008, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-cycles-in-the-animal-kingdom/458588 "2008-08-02T11:26:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-cycles-in-the-animal-kingdom/458588/1 "2008-08-02T11:26:26Z")

</div>

From observing pets, I note that they sleep a lot, but also they sleep, for a while, get up, then sleep some more.

Is it like that in the wild? Do any other animals sleep X hours through, then stay awake the rest of the day? Or do they sleep a little, stay awake a little, and sleep a little?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-cycles-in-the-animal-kingdom/458588/2 "2008-08-02T19:18:28Z")

</div>

We did a [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=466321) like this recently. In a nutshell, prey animals sleep less then predators. Giraffes only sleep a couple hours a night; lions can put in more than half their day sleeping.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sleep-cycles-in-the-animal-kingdom/458588/3 "2008-08-02T20:32:11Z")

</div>

[QUOTE=CookingWithGas]  
We did a [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=466321) like this recently. In a nutshell, prey animals sleep less then predators. Giraffes only sleep a couple hours a night; lions can put in more than half their day sleeping.  
[/QUOTE]

The thread, while interesting, seems to address the \*amount \*of sleep and not the question of cycles. What I asked was:

> [@](#):
>
> Do any other animals sleep X hours through, then stay awake the rest of the day? Or do they sleep a little, stay awake a little, and sleep a little?