How long do koalas sleep a day? It might surprise you to learn that they sleep for up to an astounding 22 hours a day. That surely is an astronomical amount of time to spend sleeping, so why do they do it? Well, it is a result of their diet.
What a life. These cute and cuddly animals get to sleep the majority of the day away, spending only a few hours a day awake, up to four at the most. But don’t be thinking that when they are awake they are overly active. Koalas make Garfield seem like an Olympic champion. The time that they spend awake is used eating and grooming themselves. What an awesome existence, I think. So now we have answered the question of how long do koalas sleep, we need to find the reason for their extensive time slumbering their lives away.
Koalas spend so much time sleeping due to their diet. As you are most likely already aware, the diet of a koala is eucalyptus leaves. As you can probably imagine, these leaves aren’t all that nutritious and are very high in fiber. To get the most out of the leaves the koalas have a very low metabolisms. Having a low metabolism keeps the leaves in the digestive tract for longer periods of time which allows them to extract more nutrients from their only food source. The off side to having a low metabolic rate and needing to conserve energy is that they need to spend large amounts of time sleeping, which is exactly what they do.
Even though koalas do spend a large chunk of the day sleeping, during mating time they do become more active. Not only do they get a little more motivated, they also become aggressive. They have been known to bite and scratch each other. And don’t be thinking that you can just cuddle a wild one either. Their claws are like talons, and they will surely carve you to pieces.
