Sloth Trivia | 40 facts about the cute animal

Sloths are a group of arboreal Neotropical xenarthran mammals, constituting the suborder Folivora.

Let’s find out more about the animal!

1. Sloths are a group of arboreal Neotropical xenarthran mammals, constituting the suborder Folivora.
2. Noted for their slowness of movement, they spend most of their lives hanging upside down in the trees of the tropical rainforests.
3. They live in the tropical rainforests of South America and Central America.
4. They are considered to be most closely related to anteaters, together making up the xenarthran order Pilosa.
5. There are six extant sloth species in two genera – Bradypus (three-toed sloths) and Choloepus (two–toed sloths).
6. Despite this traditional naming, all sloths actually have three toes on each rear limb, although two-toed sloths have only two digits on each forelimb.
7. The two groups of sloths are from different, distantly related families, and are thought to have evolved their morphology via parallel evolution from terrestrial ancestors.
8. Besides the extant species, many species of ground sloths ranging up to the size of elephants (like Megatherium) inhabited both North and South America during the Pleistocene Epoch.
9. However, they became extinct during the Quaternary extinction event around 12,000 years ago, together with most large-bodied animals in the New World.
10. The extinction correlates in time with the arrival of humans, but climate change has also been suggested to have contributed. Members of an endemic radiation of Caribbean sloths formerly lived in the Greater Antilles.
11. They included both ground and arboreal forms which became extinct after humans settled the archipelago in the mid-Holocene, around 6,000 years ago.
12. Sloths are so named because of their very low metabolism and deliberate movements.
13. Sloth, related to slow, literally means “laziness,” and their common names in several other languages (e.g. French paresseux) also mean “lazy” or similar.
14. Their slowness permits their low-energy diet of leaves and avoids detection by predatory hawks and cats that hunt by sight.
15. Sloths are almost helpless on the ground but are able to swim.
16. The shaggy coat has grooved hair that is host to symbiotic green algae which camouflage the animal in the trees and provide it nutrients.
17. The algae also nourish sloth moths, some species of which exist solely on sloths.
18. Without sloths, there would be no avocados.
19. From the moment they are born sloths are able to lift their entire body weight upwards with just one arm.
20. Also, sloths have 30% less muscle mass than similar-sized mammals and are over three times stronger than the average human.
21. They have a highly specialized muscle arrangement that can produce enough strength to withstand the force of a jaguar trying to rip them from the tree. Specialized tendons in the sloth’s hands and feet are locked into place, allowing them to hang upside down for long periods of time without wasting any energy.
22. This unique locking mechanism is also how sloths are able to sleep while hanging from a tree branch.
23. They have even been known to remain suspended upside down after death!
24. They will only relieve themselves once a week and can lose up to a third of their body weight in one sitting!
25. Furthermore, they will only do it on the ground after wiggling around the base of a tree to dig a little hole.
26. They have a very rare condition called rod monochromacy which means that they completely lack cone cells in their eyes.
27. They can swim through water three times faster than they can move on the ground! Three-fingered sloths have two more neck vertebrae than any other mammal.
28. This allows them to turn their heads through 270° and effortlessly keep their nose above water when swimming.
29. Sloths have the lowest metabolic rate of any mammal, which means that it takes them a long time to digest anything.
30. They have an incredibly large and permanently full four-chambered stomach, which can account for up to 30% of their body mass.
31. In two-fingered sloths, this oversized stomach is supported by 46 ribs (23 pairs) which is more than any other mammal!
32. Baby sloths learn what to eat by licking the lips of their mother.
33. All sloths eat the leaves of the cecropia.
34. Unlike most mammals, sloths have sacrificed the ability to control their body temperature in order to save energy.
35. Instead, they are completely reliant on the environmental conditions, and their core temperature can fluctuate over 10°C during the course of a single day!
36. If they get too cold, the special microbes that live in their stomachs can die, and the sloth can no longer digest the leaves that it eats.
37. Sloths have an unusual method of camouflage. Cracks in their hair allow many different species of algae and fungi to grow which makes them appear green. Some species of fungi living in sloth fur have been found to be active against certain strains of bacteria, cancer, and parasites!
38. Sloth hair also provides a home to an entire ecosystem of invertebrates ⁠— some species of which are found nowhere else on earth (like the ‘sloth moth’). A single sloth can host up to 950 months and beetles within its fur at once.
39. Because sloths are so difficult to study in the wild, no one has ever followed an individual from birth until death and it is virtually impossible to accurately determine the age of an adult sloth. All we have to go on is the lifespan in captivity, but sloths do not do well outside of their natural environment.
40. The oldest known sloth in the world just turned 50 years old and she lives at a zoo in Germany. We suspect that wild sloths actually live for much longer than that.