Do Fish Ever Sleep?
” “The short answer to that is yes, in a sense,” said Reid Withrow, Director of Husbandry and Life Support at Underwater Adventures, the aquarium at Mall of America. “They don’t go unconscious like human beings go unconscious, where they’re oblivious to everything that’s going on around them, that would be fatal in a lot of cases.” Scientists talk about fish having a resting state. They slow down their swimming. “Most fish have a resting phase where they’re less active than they are in the daytime,” according to Withrow. Some fish, like bass and perch, take cover underneath a log. Others, like reef fish, actually change color to blend in with the reef while they rest. Withrow believes fish don’t go into a deep sleep because of a survival instinct. If they slept, they’d likely become dinner for a larger fish. There are breeds of sharks that need to continue swimming, non-stop, in order to keep breathing. “They’re called ram ventilators, and they have to continually have water flowing ov
Even though fish don’t have eyelids they do sleep. Different species of fish sleep in different ways. Some fish will actually lie motionless in crevices at night. Just like land animals some fish are nocturnal and sleep during the day and hunt during the night. Other species such as sharks have a “sleep” state even though they never stop swimming.
When you think of sleep, you think of eyelids closing over your eyes. But fish have no eyelids, so they have nothing to close over their eyes. Yet fish DO sleep. Most fish sleep by keeping very still in the water. In this way, their bodies rest, just as yours does while you are asleep. But when fish sleep, it is not the same dee
