Now that we find ourselves on day three of chatting about all things sloth, I am sincerely hoping that you, like me, have actually gained a more thorough comprehension of these incredible creatures. I was under the impression my sloth knowledge was relatively well-versed, but upon dedicating three separate posts to these cuties, I’ve come to the realization that I was rather ignorant of how interesting these animals are prior to writing these posts.
Again, this information comes from slothconversation.org.
“7. They can starve to death on a full stomach
“Unlike most mammals, sloths have sacrificed the ability to control their body temperature in order to save energy. 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! 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.
“8. Sloths can fall 100 feet without injury
“On average, a sloth will fall out of a tree once a week for its entire life. But don’t worry, all sloths are anatomically designed to fall and survive. They can plummet from over 100 feet/30 meters without injury. When two sloths fight, it is typically over access to a female for mating, and the aim of a sloth fight is to knock your opponent out of the tree.
“9. They could cure cancer and help with bacterial resistance
“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!
“10. Sloth lifespan: No one knows how long they live for
“Because sloths are so difficult to study in the wild, no one has ever followed an individual from birth until death. It is virtually impossible to determine the age of an adult sloth accurately, so nobody knows how long sloths live. All we have to go on is the lifespan in captivity, but sloths do not do well outside of their natural environment. The oldest known sloth in the world was a two-fingered sloth named Jan, who was 54 years old and lived at a zoo in Germany. We suspect that wild sloths actually live for much longer than that, and we’re determined to study sloth logevity with an upcoming research project called ‘The Eternal Sloths’!” the web page states.
We salute you, sloths.
Photo by Javier Mazzeo on Unsplash
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