Why do some animals (like spiders or lizards) spend so much time just doing nothing? What is happening and why?
In: Biology
It’s like being in a survival situation and you need to conserve energy. Paraphrasing Les Stroud here… If you don’t need to run, walk. If you don’t need to walk, stand. If you don’t need to stand, sit. If you don’t need to sit, lie down. If you don’t need to be awake, sleep.
I feel like this question invokes the idea that they are bored. Maybe I’m wrong, but hear me out. The question alone makes me think “If I was a lizard or spider, I would be bored just doing nothing”. But they don’t have the cognitive functions to be bored. They don’t even think on the same level.
Think about any animal that is even close to our kind of brain functions. Crows and ravens for instance are super smart for their brain size. Do you ever see them just sitting there, not moving or doing anything? Naw, they are flying around and picking up shiny objects n stuff. Sure maybe they are perched on a power line or something sometimes, but most often you will see those birds doing something rather than nothing. They likely have the brain power to think about doing other things rather than just eating, procreating, or defending against threats.
Most animals spend as much time as possible doing nothing, including humans.
Doing* nothing is a great way to not get injured, or killed.
Once you have all your immediate needs taken care of (food, shelter, warmth, water,) then there really isn’t much to do except mate. That’s all most animals ever really do, with some exceptions for playing.
Humans are a bit different in as much as we seem to like to create art, write books, study, talk to one another, etc. but you could really probably lump all that into, “playing,” and I believe all of the social animals do this to some extent… which is why they’re considered social animals.
Even still humans tend to gravitate towards doing nothing once immediate needs are met.
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