Interesting pic of yet another sleeper. this time a calf. He just plonks down for a sleep and gets up 15 minutes later and goes on his way with the herd. During the whole thing the herd go about their eating. Maybe this is just something asian elephants do? I have absolutely no idea.



Addendum:


a bit of web searching....... on elephants in general.....

*Elephants sleep about approximately four hours a night. About two hours of that are spent standing. During deep sleep, individuals lie on their sides, breathing noisily, and sometimes snoring.*

"........elephants can sleep any where any time.sometimes they will take turns at sleeping while the other elephants keep watch."

and at... San Diego Zoo .....


"I am frequently asked how elephants sleep, and you may be surprised to hear that they do sleep lying down. The popular assumption is that elephants always sleep standing up, which can be true for a quick cat nap. However, elephants lie down on the ground when they sleep soundly for a few hours each night. There are even records of elephants snoring while deep in sleep! I have also seen at least one of our adult females, Swazi, kicking her feet while sleeping, much like dogs do when they are dreaming."

and at .... SanParks .....

"Although elephants can sleep standing, most of the studies indicate that elephants sleep in a recumbent position (RP) if undisturbed, and have an individual preference for lying on the right or left side. Observations revealed that elephants, if they lay down to sleep during the night, will often get up to feed and then lay back down to sleep again. The breathing rate so far observed in adult elephants sleeping in RP was 4.4 and 3.8 breaths/min, respectively. Similar sleep patterns have been described for adult African and Asian elephants in captivity, with a total sleeping time of 3.1-6.9 hours (1-4.5 hours in lateral recumbency) between the hours of 23:00 and 07:00."

I've seen this behaviour in Khao Yai. Two out of the three times it was during the day, both solitary males, of which one time was in the rain.

The following shot was on a rainy day.



All three cases were at the Deer Grassland, only one case at night which was a male with a herd feeding nearby.

In all three cases the animals were feeding and suddenly decided to take a rest. You might not notice it when it's lying in the grass as it just appears to be a large rock in the distance, haha.

I've heard that if they lay down too long it might cause too much pressure on their organs, but maybe that's just a myth.

Cute how the young calf takes a rest amidst the safety of the adults.
Special to capture this behaviour of wild elephants.