They seem to since dogs have become highly adapted to us, so we find them terribly clever. And tmaareif you can’t day pigs are more highly evolved than dogs or vice versa. They’re on different branches.
In any case, we investigated getting a pot bellied pig once, and decided not to when we found out that one a friend owned had figured out how to open the refrigerator. Way too smart and not domesticated enough for us.
Except that by sleeping at night, your are more in danger …You might not fall off a cliff-but you are unconscious and totally vulnerable to that tiger (or other human) who wants to attack you.
the weird thing is that in nature, cats dont sleep all day–they hunt and keep active as much as any other animal. But keep 'em indoors, and their biology seems to change completely. How does evolution explain that?
Actually you are more likely to be discovered by a predator while out and about than whilst asleep in your den/hole/nest/what-have-you.
Sleep is not just one thing folks. We have different stages of sleep and only some of it is that famed REM of vivid dream renown. Different stages may very well subserve different needs.
This is very true. When you first started dreaming in your momma’s womb you only had REM cycles. At birth, the average baby sleeps about 16 hours a day and is in REM sleep for half of that. At 1 year of age, the average is 13 hours with about 3 hours worth of REM sleep. If a person is deprived of their REM sleep then it is difficult for them to do tasks that involve logic and using skills one has learned before. Rote memorization does not appear to be affected by REM sleep. REM sleep increases after a person learns a novel task and brain areas that were stimulated during that task are often re-stimulated during REM sleep. This is why a lot of researchers think that REM sleep is your brains way of organizing and storing new information.
During REM sleep, the area where your brain processes visual information and the area where reasoning and planning is done are both shut down. Your amygdala and hippocampus are highly active which means that emotion, motivation, and memory are going strong. Without your frontal lobes analyzing and interpreting the information your memories and emotions come to the forefront.
Disrupting sleep in general causes mood fluctuations, endocrine malfunctioning, slower reaction times and many other negative effects. In addition to the Adaptive Theory of Sleep mentioned above, there is also the Restorative Theory of Sleep which says that the body and mind rejuvenate themselves. REM sleep effects the mind and NREM sleep affects the body. The reason NREM sleep is thought to rejuvenate the body is because after people have been through a physical strain they often sleep more than normal and hormonal levels increase during NREM sleep.
Some interesting random facts: A gorilla who was taught sign language mentioned “sleep pictures” which implies that other animals dream as well. Blind people who have been blind since before the age of 5 typically do not have visual dreams but dreams involving their other senses.
I was told that lions/tigers sleep 18-20 hours a day. I just did a google search and it appears to be “common knowledge.” Is that incorrect?
Of course some animals dream- haven’t you ever seen a dog kicking it’s legs and huffing while sleeping? He’s dreaming of chasing something or running, right?
tmaareif, we know something is going on but we can’t say for sure that they are dreaming just because the states are similar without looking at the brain. My textbook only mentions human sleep except for that line about the gorilla but I uncovered this study which suggests that animals also have active dreams as a way to consolidate and organize memory.
Hunting is expensive in energy so that Big Cats after a kill laze around as much as possible until it is time to replenish and even then in Lion prides its the females who do the work while the males concentrate on looking good.