Top 10 Most Interesting Facts About Sloths

Sloths have curved claws that allow them to effortlessly hang from tree branches without needing to hold onto anything. Their unique body structure, including three extra vertebrae in their neck and specialized internal organs, lets them sleep in a hanging position, with their head resting on their chest for long periods. Sloths are the ultimate resters, often sleeping for more than 20 hours a day. While monkeys occasionally groom each other, sloths don’t engage in such behavior. Their fur even collects moss, but they don’t mind. When they give birth, the baby sloth stays on its mother's belly, sleeping, eating, and even using the bathroom right there. If the forest floods, sloths can swim to a nearby tree branch, but this is rare.

Interestingly, while sloths are typically depicted as lazy creatures sleeping all day, this may not always be the case. In the wild, sloths sleep only about 9.6 hours per day, much less than the 16 hours observed in captivity. Though they remain slow-moving, their sleep patterns in the wild are closer to normal. Sloths in captivity tend to sleep more because their needs are fully met.

Sloths inhabit the tropical rainforests of Central and South America. Their long arms and shaggy fur often make them look like monkeys at first glance. They range in size from about 0.6 to 0.8 meters in length and weigh between 3.6 to 7.7 kilograms, depending on the species.

Although sloths can perceive colors, their vision and hearing are quite poor. As a result, they rely heavily on their sense of touch and smell when foraging for food. Sloths also have an extremely slow metabolism, with a rate less than half that of other mammals. As cold-blooded animals, their body temperature fluctuates with the environment, usually ranging from 25°C to 35°C, but can drop as low as 20°C.

There are two main species of sloths: one with two claws on the front feet and the other with three. Despite their similarities in appearance—round faces, sleepy eyes, tiny ears, and pudgy tails—the two-toed sloth is generally larger. Most of their time is spent hanging upside down from tree branches, while the three-toed sloth prefers sitting upright on branches. The facial features of the three-toed sloth give it a perpetual smiling expression. Additionally, they have two extra neck vertebrae, allowing them to rotate their heads up to 270 degrees.

Some scientists believe that the slow movements of sloths help them avoid detection by predators like hawks and cats. The moss that grows on their fur not only nourishes them but also acts as a perfect camouflage, blending them into the dense tree canopy.

Sloths rarely move. About once a week, they descend to the ground to clean themselves, using their claws to slowly scrape dirt and debris off their bodies. If threatened by predators, however, sloths become surprisingly fierce, using their sharp claws and strong bite to defend themselves while emitting loud screams to ward off attackers.

Sloths use their long arms to swim across rivers and even travel between islands. They can lower their metabolism and slow their heart rate to about a third of its normal pace, allowing them to stay submerged underwater for up to 40 minutes.

The two-toed sloth typically gives birth to a single baby at a time. For the first six months, the baby has three toes, but after about a year, it begins to develop two toes. Female sloths usually give birth once a year, but their slow movement means that sometimes it can take over a year to find a mate.

Male and female sloths have similar appearances, which has led to confusion in zoos regarding breeding pairs.

The average lifespan of a two-toed sloth in the wild is around 20 years, but they can live up to 30 years in captivity.

Sloths have a very limited diet and a slow-moving lifestyle that makes finding food an even slower process. To accommodate their poor diet, they have large stomachs with multiple chambers to hold large amounts of food. A single meal can take them months to fully digest, and their low activity level helps to minimize energy consumption. This slow metabolic rate often causes their body temperature to drop drastically. If their body temperature falls too low, their gut bacteria stop working, which means even if they’ve eaten enough for the month, they may starve because their food is not being processed.

Sloths spend most of their lives eating, sleeping, and resting in the treetops. Unlike other herbivores that supplement their diets with fruits or seeds, sloths, especially the three-toed species, rely almost entirely on leaves. Over time, they’ve developed a sophisticated strategy to adapt to this sparse diet.

First, they try to extract as much energy as possible from their food. A sloth's stomach can account for one-third of its body weight, and they can take anywhere from 5 to 7 days, or even weeks, to fully digest a single meal.

Because they lack effective defenses or speed, sloths rely on camouflage to evade predators. Their fur hosts a whole ecosystem, including symbiotic algae, a variety of microorganisms, parasitic arthropods, and even a species of moth.

The moths live on the sloth's body and, with the help of the algae's color, help deceive predators into thinking the sloth is simply part of the tree trunk. Their slow, almost motionless nature further enhances this camouflage.

However, the moths need a warm, secluded place rich in nutrients to lay their eggs. The ideal location? The sloth’s feces.

This arrangement serves dual purposes. When the moths emerge from the sloth’s waste and fly back to its body, they bring nutrients from the feces, which helps nourish the sloth’s symbiotic algae and microorganisms living on its fur.

This is why sloths are particularly meticulous about their bathroom habits.

Although not all sloth species are endangered, several of the six existing species are threatened due to habitat loss. Deforestation in the tropical rainforests of Central and South America endangers the trees that sloths rely on for food and shelter. Through a program called ARPA for Life, WWF has helped the Brazilian government create a $215 million fund to ensure the proper management of 150 million acres of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.

Sloths spend most of their time in the treetops, coming down only once a week to relieve themselves. The trees provide natural protection from predators like jaguars and eagles, offering safety for the motionless and camouflaged sloths on the ground. However, sloths occasionally risk descending to search for food or mates.

Sloths are a suborder of medium-sized mammals that belong to the two-toed and three-toed sloth families, with a total of six known species.

The defining characteristics of sloths include their slow pace and reluctance to move. They often appear dull-witted and indifferent, but these traits are an evolutionary adaptation to their environment, particularly in nutrient-poor habitats. To conserve energy, sloths limit their movement. They sleep around 10 hours a day and follow a very regulated diet, primarily consisting of leaves.

Sloths today are related to the ancient ground sloth, an extinct species that had no canine teeth and lived on the ground. These ground-dwelling sloths were relatives of today's tree-dwelling sloths. They had sharp claws and were able to stand upright on their hind legs. These massive creatures grew up to 6 meters long and weighed about 4 tons, equivalent to the weight of an African elephant. The ground sloths were slow-moving herbivores, using their sharp claws to grab leaves from branches.

The modern tree-dwelling sloths are descendants of these large, mammalian ground-dwelling relatives. As terrestrial food sources dwindled, ancient sloths began to venture towards the sea to forage. When food became scarce, these early sloths would dive into the shallow coastal waters to graze on seaweed and later explore further into the ocean, diving deeper. However, the sloths did not fully adapt to marine life; their aquatic ventures were merely a temporary solution to food scarcity.

Sloths are universally known for their sluggishness and their somewhat 'dull' appearance. Their indifference to their surroundings often leads people to believe that they are a step behind in evolution compared to other species.

True to their name, sloths are incredibly lazy creatures. They expend very little energy, moving in such a slow, deliberate manner that they often appear motionless, blending seamlessly with their environment. When on land, the fastest they can move is 160 meters per hour, a pace that looks almost like a slow-motion film effect.

On trees, they can climb at about 4 meters per minute, but when in danger, like being chased, they can speed up slightly to 4.5 meters per minute. On the ground, however, their pace slows down even further, crawling only about 3 meters per minute. Swimming is their strongest suit, with sloths able to glide through water at 1 meters per minute.

So slow is the sloth that moss and small plants can grow on its fur. Its digestive system operates at the same sluggish rate as the rest of its body. Occasionally, a sloth will descend to the ground to drink or relieve itself, but this happens only once a week. Some sloths are so lethargic that even after death, their bodies can remain hanging in the trees, never falling to the ground.