Power-Napping Pigeons

After a hard day's work searching for crumbs and running from children, pigeons need their R&R. Generally, the birds take restorative power naps at the end of a long day.

Researchers decided to see what would happen when they deprived the birds of their afternoon shut-eye. (Kind of them, wasn't it?) Dolores Martinez-Gonzalez and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany, kept the birds awake all day, and then measured their brain waves that night while they slept.

The researchers found that they slept more deeply that night, compensating for their loss of sleep by getting the most out of the sleeping hours they had.

In fact, this is just how humans would handle the situation. The researchers were surprised to find that birds and mammals regulate sleep more similarly than previously thought. The discovery means that studying sleep habits in birds may help teach us more about human sleep, the scientists said.

• All About Birds
• How Homing Pigeons Find Home
• Sleep Deprivation: The Great American Myth

Image Credit: MPI for Ornithology