sleep

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Hi;

Actually, we dont know if whales sleep in the sense that we think of it.
Whales are voluntary breathers, which means - unlike us - that they have
to think to breathe. This means that if they shut down both halves of
their brain (as we do), they probably croak. Dolphins have been monitored
with EEGs in captivity, and do something rather odd, which is sleep one
half of their brain at a time. This makes sense, since it would allow one
half of the brain to keep awake and track breathing while the other half
rested. It's very likely that large whales do the same thing, but for
obvious reasons no one has ever hooked up an EEG to a big whale to track
its brain activity!
Phil Clapham

-- 
Phillip J. Clapham, Ph.D.
Large Whale Biology Program
Northeast Fisheries Science Center
166 Water Street
Woods Hole, MA 02543
Tel (508) 495-2316
Fax (508) 495-2066
> We were wondering if whales sleep? The closest thing to whales sleeping
> that we could find is logging!  Is that how they sleep or are we just
> way off base here.   Do whales sleep?  And if so, how and when?  If you
> know anything about this please write back at mkburk@ecksor.net
> <mailto:mkburk@ecksor.net> .  That should be the adress from which we
> wrote you.  Thank you for your time in helping us with this.
>

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