Baby Whales, Moms Stay Awake for Weeks

[emad]

Caring for a newborn requires a lot of sleepless nights, as any new parent knows. But scientists now have found that for some whales and dolphins, taking care of baby means going without sleep not for hours or days, but an entire month.

In today's issue of the journal Nature, a team of researchers reports that newborn killer whales and bottlenose dolphins, as well as their mothers, go without any sleep for the first month after the calves are born. What's more, the animals don't appear to suffer any ill effects from the lack of sleep, staying alert and in motion 24 hours a day.

The researchers made the discovery after studying two female killer whales and four bottlenose dolphins, with their calves, in captivity after birth.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0629_050629_babywhales.html