Do penguins know better how to sleep than we do?

 Most people have likely heard of or taken a “catnap,” a light snooze intended to provide a quick recharge — but chinstrap penguins may be the champions of these ultrashort siestas. Per a new study published in Science, the animals were observed nodding off “more than 10,000 times a day, for only around four seconds at a time, but still managed to accumulate close to 11 hours of sleep.”  Although “microsleep” intervals may sound unsustainable to humans, they seem to work for the penguins. “What is really weird is that the penguin can sustain this in-between wake and sleep state constantly,” co-author Paul-Antoine Libourel, who studies the biology of sleep, told Smithsonian Magazine.  Why sleep for such short intervals? The researchers suggest the adaptation may be a survival strategy to protect the penguins from predators while they look after their young, or a product of their loud environment, as the birds tend to flock together. Either way, the study poses an interesting question: Could more species benefit from penguin-like power naps?