Good night, Sloth

Lab tests of animal sleep may have been too cushy or boring

Sloths aren’t as slothful when tested for sleep in their rainforest trees instead of in the lab.

STUDY PARTICIPANT The brown-throated three-toed sloth has become the first free-ranging animal to get brain wave monitoring for sleep studies. Read more… Max Planck Institute

Brown-throated three-toed sloths living in rainforest trees slept at least six hours less than the 16 hours a day previously recorded for sloths in a lab, says Niels Rattenborg of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany.