The Top Six Sleepiest (and Cutest) Animals

All animals need sleep, but some need a little more than others. And some look cute as heck doing it. Read on and snuggle up with our top six sleepiest animals.

#6: Sloths

10 hours a day!

Sloths are some very relaxed critters. How many animals have a name that literally means lazy?

Even though sloths spend a lot of their day lounging around, they only spend about ten hours a day sleeping.

Researchers used to think that sloths spent a lot more time sleeping – 15 or 16 hours a day. But recent studies show that sloths in the wild spend a lot less time sleeping than those in captivity. Ten hours is enough for these slow-moving tree-huggers.

#5: Hippos

10 hours a day!

Hippopotamuses tie with sloths: they also sleep for about ten hours a day.

Cute as they may seem, you wouldn’t want to cuddle up to a sleeping hippo: they are some of the most dangerous animals in the wild!

#4: Cats

12 hours a day!

This wouldn’t be a very good list if we didn’t include our favorite fuzzy snoozers: house cats! The average cat will sleep for about twelve hours each day.

Like their cousins the lion and tiger, house cats love to stalk their prey and then quickly pounce in an explosion of energy. But catching your dirty socks is tiring.

#3: Squirrels

15 hours a day!

All that nut-gathering means that squirrels need a lot of rest: about fifteen hours worth every day!

Squirrels usually sleep in nests built of twigs, leaves, and pine needles, all topped off with some cozy fur.

#2: Babies

16 hours a day!

That’s right – human babies are some of the sleepiest animals around. In fact, most infants six months or younger will sleep up to 16 hours each day.

Sleep is especially important for newborns because they use sleep to develop their brains and process all the new experiences of the day.

Even though babies sleep a lot, their parents sure don’t. It’s estimated that new parents will lose 600 hours of sleep in the first year!

#1: Koalas

22 hours of sleep every day!

The undisputed champion of sleep is the koala. Straight out of Australia, the koala can sleep for 90% of the day: twenty-two hours!

Koalas mostly eat eucalyptus leaves, a food low in nutrition and high in fiber – plus crammed full of toxins! It’s a myth that eucalyptus leaves make koalas high and sleepy. The leaves just take a whole lot of energy to safely digest, and koalas recharge by sleeping. A lot.

Bonus:

Who care how long they sleep for – we have to make some room for these cute little puppies somewhere.