Is there a darwinian reason for snoring?

Question

I'm a guy and I know that I can't freaking get to sleep if I hear my dad snoring. I feel like crazy gluing snorers noses. I mean, how can women sleep when their hubbies snore? Or is it because they are women, that they have some biological mechanism that blocks out snoring, letting them sleep. I wouldn't think there's any evolutionary purpose...it would only let other cavemen/predators know where you are, making it easy for them to prey on you.

I, myself, think that snoring is only something that modern man does. I don't think men in prehistoric times grew to be fat or old enough to snore. Or is it only to do with the throat/windpipe, meaning that totally fit athletes snore as well?

Answer 1

By the time your wife knows that you snore, it is too late, she has already chosen you as a mate, and it isn't worth the effort to give you up. You then have a couple of offspring, then after a few years, the wife can't take the snoring any more, and decides to smother your face with a pillow. But the evolutionary joke is on her, because your genetic material has already been passed on to the next generation - of snorers.

Answer 2

Snoring is a medical condition. I don't think it would provide an evolutionary benefit. It would make it easier for predators to find you in the dark. Old dogs also snore.

Answer 3

Labsci's answer is not only funny, but correct! (Thumbs up from me.)

Regardless of whether snoring is a recent development of modern humans or not, it would seem to be neither advantageous or disadvantageous to propagation of your genes. It is what we call "neutral" from the Darwinian point of view.

Answer 4

I've been told I snore, I hate it...can never sleep when someone else it.
That doesn't answer your question, I just thought you'd like to know that useful piece of information

:D