News Animals

Dragons sleep like mammals and birds

Proof of reptiles’ slow-wave and REM cycle could alter understanding of slumber’s evolution

a sleeping Australian dragon

CATCHING Z’S While sleeping, this Australian dragon (Pogona vitticeps) shows brain wave patterns similar to those of slumbering birds and mammals. 

Stephan Junek/MPI for Brain Research

By Sarah Schwartz

- More than 2 years ago

Lizards might snooze like humans do.

Sleeping lizards appear to share distinctive brain activity patterns with sleeping birds and mammals, researchers report in the April 29 Science.