Did your parents ever tell you, "Laziness was born before you"? Well, they were right. Laziness was born long before you or me. It appeared alongside animals, and some of them practically embody it. Even a sloth is the very definition of activity compared to them, though it would also be on the list.
So, without further ado, here are the top 10 laziest animals in the world.
10. Leo
Lions may be kings of the savannah, but their majesties love to sleep. And they do so with truly royal abandon – 18 to 20 hours a day.
Lions' habitats are hot, and hunting large prey requires a ton of energy. Sometimes, to prepare for the next hunt, lions sleep for a full 24 hours.
9. Nurse shark
Most sharks are perpetual motion machines because their breathing apparatus requires movement. But not the nurse shark, affectionately known as the "couch potato of the sea." This species can pump water through its gills without moving, allowing it to spend over 12 hours a day on the ocean floor.
They feed at night. But nurse sharks don't require much food, and what they do eat is lazily sucked in rather than actively pursued.
8. Giant panda
Giant pandas have perfected the art of segmented sleep. These black-and-white bears sleep for about 12 hours a day, with three-hour intervals.
Why does it take so long? It's all down to bamboo, their main food source. Pandas love it, but it's low in nutrients, so they must eat at least 20 kilograms a day to survive! All that chewing and digesting puts a lot of strain on their bodies.
7. Echidna
One of the funniest animals in the world sleeps 12 hours a day. And who can blame it! The poor echidnas are stuck in the Australian heat, but they can't sweat to cool themselves. At night, they wake up to forage for food. But after sunrise, the echidna goes back to sleep somewhere in the shade.
The echidna is also one of only two mammals that lay eggs. The other is the platypus.
6. Night monkey (Myrikina)
These monkeys, whose sleep can last 17 hours, are nothing compared to the echidna and giant pandas. These primates eat and socialize after dark. Because of this lifestyle, these nocturnal monkeys have excellent vision, but they are color-blind.
Mirikinae live in families consisting of monogamous parents and children who have not yet reached independence. And nocturnal monkey fathers care for their children more than their mothers.
5. Python
These snakes have a bad reputation, but a closer look at their lifestyle reveals that they are lazy slobs. These fearsome reptiles sleep up to 18 hours a day.
Why are they so lazy? Pythons eat only once a week, and digesting a whole swallow requires a huge amount of energy. They also shed periodically (4-6 weeks), which also requires energy.
4. Hippopotamus
Given their enormous size, it's no surprise that hippos fall on the lazy side of the activity scale. These giant mammals sleep between 16 and 20 hours a day. Whether they snooze on land or in the water, hippos aren't picky; they can snooze almost anywhere!
At night, when the hot sun has disappeared from view, hippos roam their territory in search of food. When these animals stumble upon a fertile patch of land, they can stand in one spot for five hours, devouring the succulent grass and other plant matter.
3. Sloth
Of course, a list of the laziest animals couldn't be complete without the creature that first comes to mind when the word "laziness" is mentioned. Notoriously slow, sloths sleep about 20 hours a day. But to their credit, two-toed sloths are slightly faster than three-toed ones.
The sloths' slow movements are explained by their extremely slow metabolism.
Interestingly, sloths are genetically closer to armadillos than to monkeys. These animals also defecate only once a week, doing so on the ground, where they are vulnerable to predators, and then returning high up in a tree.
2. Koala
People often call koalas "koala bears," but this is a misnomer. Koalas are marsupials, not bears.
These adorable furballs are awake for no more than 2-6 hours a day. Like giant pandas, koalas' near-constant sleep is tied to feeding. Much of their diet consists of eucalyptus, a very high-fiber food. Digesting it requires all the little koalas' energy.
1. Adelaide pygmy blue-tongued skink
The Adelaide pygmy blue-tongued skink is the laziest animal on the planet. It's the perfect pet for those too lazy to care for an animal. To feed themselves, these harmless, exotic lizards can sit with their mouths open for long periods, waiting for food to fall inside. The same goes for water—they rely on raindrops falling on their tongues.
Scientists believed the dwarf blue-tongued lizard had become extinct in the recent past, but it turns out these wily reptiles were simply hiding! Male lizards show off their giant blue tongues to each other during mating season, vying for the attention of females.