Riding the Shark.

I touched the shark. It felt smooth.

The sharks tail moved side to side in a rhymic beat.

“Wow!” Bubbles exploded out of my mouth as I said it.

The river was clear as glass. The shark became light

and lifted up to the surface then fell back down like a stone.
The shark took no notices it swam to the side of the river.  

Then the shark started to circle around the river.
It circled for several minutes.  
Why was it doing this? I thought.
Then it circled faster. Faster. Then it zoomed into the

middle...

Animal sleep facts.

Animal sleep facts

Sleep is important for everything. But not everything sleeps
the same way. Large Animals like Horses, Elephants and
Rhinos sleep standing up. They need a stay apparatus.
Giraffes sleep standing up too, but sleep less. They sleep for
2 hours, probably because they eat a lot. About 37 kilograms
of food a day. Frigatebirds sleep while flying! They fly for as long as 10 days and distances up to 3,000 kilometers. Dolphins have to breathe, so they can’t sleep or they'll drown. Instead one half of their brain sleeps while the other half helps them to breathe and move around. This is the same with ducks. Sperm whales-the largest toothy hunter on the planet-sleep vertically. Before they knew this, they thought that all marine mammals used the half brain method until 2008. A group of researchers found  a pod of sperm whales sleeping vertically. Sharks however are a different story. They have to keep swiming stay alive. They do something called yo-yo diving. They swim up to the surface of the water, then drift back down for a while. They let water run across their gills as they sleep, then wake up and repeat the process. Not all sharks do this. Some sharks don’t have to let the water run across the gills to survive. Some species of parrot fish have a gross sleeping habit. They blow a “snot bubble”. This takes a long time to make, but internal the bubble protects it from a nasty blood sucking parasite called a gnathiid. Octopus sleep abit like humans. They experience R.E.M sleep. Researchers used to assume that invertebrates didn’t sleep in a technical sense. Then marine biologists saw that the cuttlefish turned a dull colour for 10-15 minutes, then twitch and flash different colours before repeating the cycle. This is how invertebrates experience R.E.M sleep. There are lots of animals out there with weird sleeping habits, and these are just a few. Maybe you know something? Bye!