I love animals - Information and a story for small kids - The Sloth
If you tell somebody they are as slow as a sloth, you mean they are really really moving slow. These animals spend their time in trees, hanging upside down most of the time and only move if it is really necessary.
They look like such relaxed, chilled animals. Wish we could all be like that...
There are 6 species of sloths and the are group into two, namely do they have two toes or three toes. It can be difficult to spot, since all sloths has three toes, but the two toed sloth actually only have fingers. A bit confusing but never the less, lets learn more about this cute animal.
The sloth is family to the anteater and armadillo (the very slow family member I would say) and their natural habitat is found in Central and North America in the jungles. Since so many trees are cut down and jungles destroyed, this poor animal, like many other are loosing their habitat.
A sloth is about 50-60 cm long but bones of pre-historic sloths were discovered and they were as big as elephants. What?? How big were the trees they lived in??
Most sloths are herbivores that will feed off the leaves and buds from the trees, but there are some who will eat insects and lizards. (You cannot think that an animal that most of the time moves very slowly, can catch insects or lizards...)
Sloths have a four-part stomach that very slowly digests the tough leaves they eat, it can sometimes take up to a month for them to digest a meal. Digesting this diet means a sloth has very little energy left to move around making it one of the slowest moving animals in the world.
Since the animal move so slowly and has a very unique thick fur, there are a lot of other organisms that will use it as a home, like cockroaches and beetles and even fungi and algae. The green of the algae on the sloth actually helps with its camouflage in the trees.
They have quite long tongues which they can push out for about 12 inches out of their mouth so they do not have to move right up to their food.
Their claws are very strong and sharp and this not only helps them to hold onto the branches, it also helps to defend then against their enemies.
A sloth will stay in the trees most of their live, but once a week they have to leave the tree and go down to the ground to use the 'toilet'. They are now very vulnerable to predators such as jaguars, eagles and snakes.
Two-toed sloths are nocturnal, being most active at night. While three-toed sloths are diurnal which means they are most active during the day.
A sloth will sleep about 10 hours of the day and while they can become up to 16 years in the wild, in captivity when cared for properly, they can live up to 30 years.
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