Have you ever wondered if insects sleep?

Measuring sleep in insects is not an easy task. However, periods of apparent inactivity have been observed in many species.

Have you ever wondered if insects sleep?

The answer is yes, insects do sleep, although with nuances. Different investigations refer to how insects such as wasps, flies, cockroaches, bees or praying mantises rest. All of them conclude that they do sleep.

A study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania and the California Neuroscience Institute has revealed information on how fruit flies sleep.

These insects sleep so soundly that, when they are at rest, it is difficult to wake them up.

On the other hand, sleep deprivation experiments with bee populations showed that they became very erratic in their behavior and incoherent in their movements when they were not rested.

The University of South Florida and the University of Texas at Arlington studied ants. Experiments showed that ants do sleep. However, they distribute their sleeping time in a very different way.

These insects rest for a period of about 4 hours a day, which they divide into about 250 naps of about one minute each. Workers, collectors and soldiers share this partial sleep.