Education
Why a Snail Can Sleep For 3 Years Straight
Think you’re a deep sleeper? Well, you might want to take a look at these fellas.
Snails, they’ve always been boring, right? They’re slow, gooey, and seem completely lost, but what you don’t know, is that these small gastropods have insanely unique sleeping habits.
It’s weird to think that snails need to sleep, after all, they don’t look like they do much. Yet, a study at the University of Toronto proved people from all over the world wrong. It turns out, that snails sleep for fifteen hours (falling in and out of sleep seven times), and then, go on to do their activities for thirty hours straight.
Unlike a human’s twenty-four hour period of activity and sleep, a snail’s sleep and activity period is divided into forty-eight to seventy-two hours.
Snails are mostly awake during nighttime because it’s moist and humid compared to when the sun comes out during the daytime. Snails need humidity because it allows them to produce the mucus that lets them slide from place to place.
But what happens when there’s no humidity whatsoever?
When the weather is extremely hot or cold, snails can stay inside their shell for long periods. In some extreme cases, where there are long periods of extreme weather, snails will sleep for 3 years, although it is not very common. If you put it into perspective, a snail could spend one-third of its life sleeping.
It’s important to mention that, a snail not only goes into hibernation, but it also goes into aestivation. Hibernation is a period in which an animal goes through prolonged dormancy to avoid having to forage for food or migrate to a warmer area. Aestivation, on the other hand, is a period of prolonged dormancy during hot and dry periods.
Interested? Well, there’s more.
Scientists from India, Jayaseelan B. Franklin, and R. P. Rajes, managed to identify sleep-promoting compounds in the venom of the Conus Araneosus, a species of sea snail commonly known as the “Cobweb Cone”. Specifically, fourteen peptides were isolated and then divided accordingly by classes; they found that five of these peptides could be used for pharmacological purposes.
Some good news for the Insomniacs!
So next time you see a snail, don’t just think about how slow or boring they are; instead, think about their insane sleeping complexity and how they could potentially give you a good night’s sleep. You know what they say:
“The best thing to do first thing in the morning is to go right back to sleep!”
