Science Snapshots: Reindeer Chew in their Sleep

I'm no biologist. In fact, it's one of my least favorite science areas. I love me some plants and animals, but I just do not care about their inner workings in much the same way as you likely don't care about the complex ass process in which ice crystals form in the upper atmosphere. And no, I won't tell you about that, because my graduate level coursework in this arena basically didn't care if we understood it either because it's that big of a pain in the ass. However, I WILL tell you about this delightful news during the lovely time between Christmas and the New Year: reindeer chew their cud in their sleep! Talk about multitasking.

You may have heard of reindeer. Those delightful animals that fly through the air and pull Santa's sleigh. No! Much to the dismay of a disturbingly large portion of the population, reindeer are in fact real animals. In North America, we call them caribou, because how could we dream of keeping naming consistent across continents? Reindeer is the preferred term in Europe and Asia, and as implied, they entirely circle the Arctic across all three continents. I personally love them, because the deer in general is a very special animal to me.

They are pretty varied too. The smallest is the Svalbard Reindeer, while the largest is the Osborn's Caribou. They also have different coat colors between seasons and species. The smaller, northern populations tend towards a whiter coat while more southern populations are larger and tend towards a darker coat. Behold the glory of the reindeer with these three photos.

These are Svalbard Reindeer (via Wikipedia)

This one is a caribou (via Nat Geo Kids)

Here's a more grey reindeer from Norway (via Wikipedia)

But back to the chewing. A study published in the journal Current Biology found that they can eat and sleep at the same time. Living the dream! Reindeer are a type of animal known as ruminants, meaning that like cows they have to bring up their food and chew it again in order to get maximum benefit from the tough plants that form their diet. They also live in the WAAAAY Great White North, meaning during the winter there's barely anything to eat and during the summer they have to get all their eating done while it's light, which is all the time because of the Earth's tilt. What is a sleepy, hungry reindeer to do?

Well, according to this study, the brain activity and body state of the reindeer who were being fed indicated that they were getting some non-REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep while eating and chewing their cud. This allows them to get maximum nutrients and catch up on their sleep while they can.

Of course, like much science, the locals already knew this. Indigenous populations that have lived alongside the reindeer for centuries have a term that roughly translates to "pasture peace" and may very well be describing the phenomenon recently described here.

Long live the reindeer and their ability to catch some z's in the sun and while eating!

For the source article, click here: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/reindeer-sleep-eat-chew-arctic