Sleep is nature’s way of rebuilding your body after a busy day. When you sleep, your muscles relax, your heartbeat and breathing slow down and you gradually lose awareness of your surroundings. When you wake up, you’re ready for a new day. Just like you, animals need sleep. But you might be surprised at the sleeping habits- and bedrooms-of some animals. For example, a leopard above left is happiest sleeping draped over the branch of a tree. Leopards spend a lot of time in trees. They are champion hunters, sometimes leaping on animals that pass under the branches where they lie hidden. But they spend much of the day asleep and do their hunting at night. Scientists think that leopards and other mammals dream when they sleep, just as people do.
But what animals dream about is anyone’s guess. Leopards aren’t the only animals that sleep in trees. Many birds can sleep while firmly grasping a tree branch, often with one leg. Like the tree wrens shown above right, has a tree for a bedroom, too.
A huge gray from takes shape in the dim light of an African dawn, it’s an elephant, slowly moving toward the bank of the river. Cautiously, the great beast lifts its trunk and sniffs the air for danger. Then it rumbles a signal, and other elephants appear on the river bank. Soon all are drinking and bathing contentedly- snorting, rolling in the mud and playfully squirting water over themselves. Elephants are impressive creatures. Standing about 10 feet tall at the shoulder and weighing as much as 6 tons, they are the largest land animals. They are famous for their intelligence as well as for their size and strength.
Yet today these magnificent animals are in danger of disappearing. For years, hunters slaughtered elephants. Most of the animals were killed for one reason- their ivory tusks, which were valued for making jewelry and other items. Since 1989 an international ban on ivory trade has reduced the slaughter, but some elephants are still being killed. And elephants face another serious problem. Much of their natural habitats have been taken over by people.
