Penguins take thousands of naps every day, each about a few seconds long

Penguins are champion power nappers, known for their fragmented sleeping patterns. A recent study found that penguins fall asleep thousands of times a day, each bout lasting only a few seconds. Unlike humans, penguins have slow brain waves while sleeping, and their sleep patterns vary depending on their environment. Despite the noisy and dangerous conditions in penguin colonies, these birds manage to sleep a lot, suggesting that microsleep provides some essential benefit in extreme conditions.