Hydra Haiku

Hydra’s sleep shows us how ancient the machinery of sleep is…

Painting of Hercules fighting a hydra (by John Singer Sargent, 1921, Wikimedia Commons)

Hydra’s Sleep

Tentacles waving.
Eating. Then arms down. Quiet.
Do it all again.

Hydra (Flatters & Co., 1911, Wikimedia Commons)

We look at the common pond critter, the hydra, and think this little monster looks nothing like us. And we’d be right. But it’s the things we can’t see which amaze. It’s the genetics, and the discovery of how deeply this little tentacled carnivore’s sleep behavior reflects the ancient origins of our own sleep.

I wrote about research into the sleep of the hydra and what it tells us about our sleep, and its essential nature, here:

The Sleep of the Hydra

Sleep is so essential and fundamental to animal behavior that many chemicals (like melatonin) that induce sleep or wakefulness act in similar ways in hydra and humans. There are exceptions, but those reinforce the ancient…