From an evolutionary perspective, how did our species evolve to have derp sleep for long hours? I understand that sleeping conserves energy, but it would also make humans vulnerable to predators and not getting killed should take priority over saving energy
In: Biology
> Vulnerable to predators
Yes and no. Humans live in group. That makes it extremely dangerous to attack them, even for the most fearsome animals, and even while they are sleeping. On top of that, they hold a grudge. If an animal kills one human, the humans are going to take revenge on their whole family.
As a result, almost all land animals learned that it’s not a good idea to attack humans. Humans don’t really have any significant predator.
Regarding your main question, it’s not super clear why we need sleep, but it’s clearly not unique to humans. All animals with a brain that is bigger than a peanut sleep. And although we know the consequences of a lack of sleep, it’s still not very well understood why those happen.
It’s also worth nothing that chimps, gorillas, or even cats sleep more than we do. So it’s not like humans are an outlier either.
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