About Three Toed Sloths

The three-toed sloth is a mammal found from the middle jungle portions of Central America southwards into the Amazon rain forest. Three-toed sloths are notoriously slow moving creatures and spend nearly all of their lives in trees. Three-toed sloths are one of the two types of sloths in the world, with the other variety possessing two toes on its front feet.

Identification

Three-toed sloths can be as long as 2 feet and weight almost 9 pounds. They possess three very long claws on each front foot which are curved in such a way that they can be utilized to grip tightly to branches. Sloths have necks with extra vertebrate in them; this lets them turn the head as far as 270 degrees around. Sloths have dirty grayish/brownish fur that is very long. The tail is short and the sloth looks nothing like its closest relative in the animal kingdom, which is the anteater.

Diurnal

The sloth is easily the slowest moving mammal in the entire world, a feature that gave it its name. The three-toed sloth differs from the two-toed kind in one other important way besides the number of toes on their front feet. While the two-toed sloth will move about at night, making it a nocturnal animal, the three-toed sloth is diurnal, feeding and being "active" during the daylight hours in the tropics.

Expert Insight

This animal actually moves so deliberately that algae tend to grow on its fur. This gives the animal's coat a green tint, which comes in handy as a sort of camouflage as the sloth moves sluggishly amongst the leaves in trees. Sloths are excellent swimmers, which helps them when they occasionally fall from trees into the water of rivers below. However, on the ground a sloth is so inept due to the weak muscles in its back legs that it needs to pull itself around with its strong front ones and long claws.

Upside Down

The sloth will do everything while hanging upside down. It dines on the leaves, stems, and fruits of the trees it is in, obtaining nearly all of its water from plant matter. Sloths sleep upside down in trees, as long as 20 hours per day. The acts of mating and giving birth are done upside down as well. Baby sloths will cling upside-down to their mothers for the first 9 months of life.

Predators

A sloth that winds up on the ground, usually from a fall, is an easy meal for a predator such as a jaguar. Its inability to move quickly on the ground leaves it with only its teeth and claws to defend itself. The harpy eagle, which shares the same range as the three-toed sloth, will also swoop down and grab a sloth as it hangs on the outer branches of trees in the sun.