A new study has found chinstrap penguins snooze thousands of times per day, accumulating their daily sleep requirement of more than 11 hours in short bursts averaging just four seconds.

The penguins' sleep occurred while standing or while lying to incubate their eggs, with the average bout lasting 3.91 seconds. In total they slept more than 10,000 times a day.

A team led by Paul-Antoine Libourel of Lyon Neuroscience Research Centre implanted electrodes on 14 birds at a colony on King George Island in December 2019. They recorded electrical activity in the brain and neck muscles, and they used accelerometers and GPS to study body movement and location.

The flightless birds might have evolved this trait because of their need to remain constantly vigilant, according to the authors of the paper in Science published on Thursday. The researchers argued that the findings show, contrary to prior assumptions, the benefits of sleep can accrue incrementally, at least in some species.

Chinstrap penguins, named for the thin black band of plumage that extends from ear to ear, may be the most abundant species of penguin. Their current population is estimated at nearly eight million breeding pairs that are found mainly on the Antarctic Peninsula and South Atlantic Ocean islands.

When nesting, single parent penguins have to keep watch over their eggs, guarding them from predatory birds called skuas while their partners are away on foraging trips that last several days.

They also have to defend their nests from other penguins that might try to steal nest material. (AFP)