Talk:Sleep in animals

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A fact from Sleep in animals appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 January 2008, and was viewed approximately 1,565 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that some animals interrupt their hibernation a couple of times during winter so that they can sleep?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/January.

Wikipedia

Translation

Is this a translation from the swedish article? 213.115.186.132 (talk) 10:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it started out that way anyway. We've changed a bit about the seals, to conform to the references given. (I fell in love with Nitramus' article, Sömn hos djur, but I'm not good enough in Swedish, so I recruited a translator here.)

I see that the Swedish article has some new photos, some of which we should borrow. --Hordaland (talk) 13:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And now, over a year later, I discover there's even a template for translation from (see above). I learn something new every day....... - Hordaland (talk) 00:44, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

sleep duration line makes no sense

In herbivores, an inverse correlation is apparent between body mass and sleep length; big animals sleep more than smaller ones.

Ok I'm not an expert here, but this makes no sense to me. Is it an inverse correlation or a positive one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.149.184.246 (talk) 12:18, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merge suggestion

There is a merge suggestion on this page. It reads "It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into [[:|Sleep patterns#Sleep in non-humans]]. (Discuss) Proposed since June 2012." The "Discuss" isn't clickable, so I'll discuss here.

I think both articles are long enough as it is, and the division is logical.

--Hordaland (talk) 07:09, 4 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. In fact, in the hope of saving work for everybody, I've gone ahead and boldly removed the template. If anybody feels that a full discussion is necessary, please feel free to put the template back. Looie496 (talk) 02:34, 5 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I third. Frankly I think if anything human sleep should be separate, not nonhuman sleep, as humans only make up a tiny fraction of the animals that sleep. 72.251.19.136 (talk) 07:30, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unihemispheric sleep

In the cat experiment, it is mentioned that the brain stem is cut into half. How can the brain stem be cut into half? I suppose it is the corpus callosum that is cut into half. Will someone check on the cat experiment?

Haaaa (talk) 09:13, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't exactly say "cut in half". It says "the connection between the left and the right halves of the brain stem has been severed...".

The reference title in English is "Chronic split brain stem preparation: Effect on the sleep-waking cycle". The brain stem is split.

Anyone wanting to check the reference, must be able to read French.

--Hordaland (talk) 10:35, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's not that hard, I think you just expose the brain stem and then run a scalpel down the middle of it. Looie496 (talk) 23:25, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Shrews

I learnt that shrews have extremely little sleep, in the order of minutes rather than hours. Is this right? Shouldn't the article mention that? Steinbach (talk) 13:10, 26 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Article-Image Disagreement

The article says a jellyfish "is the most primitive organism in which sleep-like states have been observed." The image next to it says a nematode "is the most primitive organism in which sleep-like states have been observed." Which of these is more "primitive." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ambroginogiusti (talk • contribs) 18:49, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If we translate "more primitive" as "evolutionarily more distant from vertebrates", then jellyfish are more primitive, as they are not bilaterians. If we are asking which species is more complex, I think that would be difficult. (The discovery of sleep in jellyfish is quite recent, by the way.) Looie496 (talk) 20:24, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 3 October 2021

It has been proposed in this section that Sleep in animals be renamed and moved to Sleep in animals.

A bot will list this discussion on requested moves' current discussions subpage within an hour of this tag being placed. The discussion may be closed 7 days after being opened, if consensus has been reached (see the closing instructions). Please base arguments on article title policy, and keep discussion succinct and civil.

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Sleep in non-human animals → Sleep in animals – This article discusses sleep in all animals, humans included, so the title is inaccurate. Fish567 (talk) 14:25, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Which begs the question, how does this differ from Sleep in plants, Sleep in bacteria, Sleep in fungi and so on? Isn't sleep something specific to animals? We do have Sleep in fish. 85.67.32.244 (talk) 16:52, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: This article could reasonably be called Sleep, but Sleep is an article about sleep in humans, which is undoubtedly the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The current title of this article is intended as natural disambiguation, which would not be achieved by Sleep in animals. We need to convey that this is the article about sleep generally rather than human sleep. The brief references to humans in this article are by way of comparison. The current title does seem clumsy, but I don't see a great solution. Sleep (non-human animals)? Sleep (generally)? Sleep (sensu lato)? Havelock Jones (talk) 16:58, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sleep (non-human) would do. No need to specify animals since no organisms other than animals sleep. 2600:1700:E660:9D60:CC56:97F:33B7:4295 (talk) 21:28, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: Sleep is specifically about human sleep, and this shouldn't mention humans. That's easily done:

cut reference 1 and reference 48, the statements are each supported by another reference
change "diurnal organisms (such as humans)" to "diurnal animals (such as horses)" or just cut the parenthesis. Especially since the advent of efficient artificial lighting, lots of humans are not diurnal anyway.
cut the sentence starting "Humans sleep less than many other omnivores" or move it to Sleep
remove humans from the list at "Comparative average sleep periods for various mammals (in captivity) over 24 hours" – in any case, I am not sure that, in Orwell's words "unless you are in a prison or a holiday camp", humans can generally be described as being in captivity.

and you're done. 85.67.32.244 (talk) 17:06, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]