How Long Do Pandas Sleep (And Why)?

Exact Answer: 8 – 12 Hours

A Panda, also known as a panda bear, is an animal that is native to the south-central part of China. It is widely known for its iconic and bold black and white fur over its body. It has a rotund body and is considered a cute-looking animal. Also, like other bears, even pandas spend most of the time in a day eating and sleeping.

A panda is a herbivorous animal whose diet consists of leaves, stems, and shoots of various bamboo species. Pandas are cuddly and gentle creatures. However, pandas are lazy as they do not move a lot. Even if pandas move from one place to another, their movement is very slow.

How Long Do Pandas Sleep?

Conditions	Duration
Total sleeping time in a day	8 – 12 hours
Sleeping time in one nap	2 -4 hours

Sleeping is essential for every living being. Just like humans need sleep each day to function effectively, similarly, animals too need to sleep every day. Pandas are infamous for being lazy as they take numerous naps throughout the day.

A panda, unlike other animals who sleep all night, this animal takes naps instead of sleeping continuously for a long duration. Pandas have their naps after having their meal. These laps last for about 2 to 4 hours. However, as pandas take multiple such naps in a single day, in totality, the panda sleep on average for 8 – 12 hours per day.

Pandas sleep on their back or belly, or curl up on their side and sleep comfortably. These animals are not picky in terms of their sleeping location. They can very well fall asleep on the bare forest floor, may sleep next to a tree, or might even sleep balancing their body on the branch of the tree.

As the major time in a panda’s day is spent on eating, pandas sleep in 2 – 4 hours intervals between their two meals. Thus, a panda spent 10 – 16 hours feeding on bamboo and rest 8 – 12 hours on sleeping and thus, are rightly classified as lazy animals.

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Why Do Pandas Sleep For This Long?

One can easily say that bamboo is critical to a panda’s diet. They feed on bamboos belonging to various species, but sometimes also on shoots and leaves. Thus, 99 percent of their diet consists of bamboo but the rest 1 percent pertains to other vegetation.

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As bamboo is extremely low in nutrients, and pandas eat a lot of it daily, their body does not much energy to be active throughout the day and hence, are lazy. The low nutritional value of bamboo does not fully satisfy the panda after having it once and therefore they are required to have it multiple times during the day.

Since a lot of time of the day has to be spent on eating, a panda cannot sleep for long intervals as it has to feed. Thus, the panda’s sleeping time in a single time cannot be too long. Thus, they take multiple naps of 2 – 4 hours throughout the days, and after waking up from these naps spend about 3 – 4 hours eating.

Thus, the sleep schedule of a panda is not like other animals as they do not sleep all night long in a single stretch as do have to wake up even at night to eat over as they have to keep up the nutrient they require to stay alive. As they do not consume food with high nutrient content, they need to have it throughout the day.

Pandas sleep both day and night as they sleep in intervals of 2 – 3 hours. Thus, pandas do not mind whether it is daytime or night while they are sleeping. However, it is observed that most of the sleeping happens during the daytime.

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Conclusion

Pandas are solitary animals who spend most of their time either eating or sleeping. As these two things comprise the main activities in a day for a panda, they are considered to be lazy.

Sleep is necessary both for humans as well as animals. Living beings spend a considerable amount of their time sleeping as it is essential for proper functioning and is refreshing in nature. Thus, as humans sleep for 7 – 8 hours daily, pandas spend 8 – 12 hours in a day for sleeping but not in the same way humans do.

The total duration of which a panda sleeps in a day is about 8 – 12 hours in total. However, the panda does not sleep for this many hours in a single stretch, but it does so intervals of 2 – 3 hours throughout the day. This is mainly because their diet consists mostly of bamboos which are low in nutrition and thus, the panda becomes hungry too often. To satisfy its hunger, it is required to feed multiple times and is unable to sleep for long hours.

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