25 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Sloth | Amazing Facts 4U
- There are four living species of three-toed sloths; these are the brown-throated sloth, the maned sloth, the pale-throated sloth, and the pygmy three-toed sloth.
- Sloths can live up to 40 years old.
- Sloths are identified by the number of long, prominent claws that they have on each front foot. There are both two-toed and three-toed sloths.
- Extinct sloth species include many ground sloths, some of which attained the size of elephants.
- The pygmy three-toed sloth can only be found on Isla Escudo de Veraguas which has been separated from mainland Panama for 9,000 years. The major threat to the pygmy three-toed sloth is habitat destruction which is reducing the size of its already small habitat.
- Being the world’s slowest mammal, the sloth travels at a top speed of 0.24 kilometers per hour (0.15 mph). They are so sedentary that algae grow on their furry coat making them green aiding camouflage.
- Sloths make a good habitat for other organisms, and a single sloth may be home to moths, beetles, cockroaches, and fungi as well as algae.
- The three-toed sloth is arboreal (tree-dwelling), with a body adapted to hang by its limbs; the large curved claws help the sloth to keep a strong grip on tree branches. It lives high in the canopy.
- The amazing fact is that three-toed sloths can turn their heads almost 360 degrees due to extra neck vertebra.
- Sloths only urinate/defecate once a week. They descend once a week to defecate on the forest floor. Amazingly sloths defecate and urinate at the same place every time and become vulnerable to predators.
- Sloths sleep in trees for some 10 to 15 hours every day. Even when awake they often remain motionless.
- At night they eat leaves, shoots and fruit from the trees and get almost all of their water from juicy plants.
- Amazingly dead sloths have been known to retain their grip and remain suspended from a branch.
- Sloths will move between different trees up to four times a day, although they prefer to keep to a particular type of tree, which varies between individuals, perhaps as a means of allowing multiple sloths to occupy overlapping home ranges without competing with each other.
- Although they are quite slow in trees, three-toed sloths are agile swimmers.
- On land, sloths’ weak hind legs provide no power and their long claws are a hindrance. They cannot walk on all four limbs so they must use their front arms and claws to drag themselves across the rain forest floor.
- If caught on land, these animals have no chance to evade predators, such as big cats and must try to defend themselves by clawing and biting.
- Sloths’ primary predators include eagles, snakes, and jaguars.
- In trees the sloth’s greenish color and its sluggish habits provide an effective camouflage. Hanging quietly, the sloth resembles a bundle of leaves.
- The three-toed sloth, unlike most other mammals, does not fully maintain a constant body temperature, and this limits it to warm environments.
- Sloths are solitary creatures who only gather to mate.
- Sloths mate and give birth while hanging in the trees. Females give birth to a single young after a gestation period of around six months.
- Three toed sloth babies are often seen clinging to their mothers . They travel by hanging on to them for the first nine months of their lives.
- Once sloth babies are weaned, the mother leaves her home territory to her offspring and moves elsewhere.
- Adults are solitary, and mark their territories using anal scent glands and dung.
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