The Natural Habitat of Sloths
Picture a painfully slow-moving animal the size of a dog that hangs upside down all day in a tree and you will have some idea of what a sloth is. The sloth family divides into the three-toed species and the two-toed species. All sloths have three toes on their hind feet, but the two types of sloths take their name from the number of toes on their front feet. Sloths are arboreal, with their natural habitat always being a tree of some sort in a rainforest setting.
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Geography
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The San Diego Zoo website notes that the toe-toed sloths live throughout Central America and into the northern portions of South America, in nations such as Columbia, Peru, Brazil and Venezuela. The three-toed sloths inhabit parts of Central America and have a wider range across South America, living throughout most of the upper half, including much of Brazil.
Rainforests
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In the rainforests they inhabit, sloths look for trees that feature dense branches. Sloths take into account just how many hours a day the upper canopy of a tree has exposure to the hot rays of the sun. The sloth will move into the sun to warm itself and then retreat into the thick foliage until it cools down. Sloths live only in rainforest scenarios since the climate changes very little and the conditions promote constant growth of the vegetation they eat.
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Close Trees
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The San Francisco State University Department of Geography states that sloths such as the brown throated three-toed sloth require that the trees within their habitat be close to each other so that the sloth can move from one to the other with little time spent on the ground, if any. The reason for this is that while the sloth is an excellent climber and an animal that can hang from branches for days on end, it is helpless on the ground. The animal has such little muscle mass that it cannot walk, making it necessary to drag itself around when out of a tree. At such times, the sloth is at the mercy of such predators as the ocelot and the jaguar.
Human Effects
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The maned three toed sloth lives in Brazil’s Atlantic coastal region, where it currently feels the effects in the forest of human activity. This type of sloth is an endangered species that, according to animalinfo.org, is in trouble because of loss of habitat to forestation. Its habitat has lost huge amounts of trees for lumber and the production of charcoal. People clear the land to raise cattle and develop plantations, fragmenting the forest and separating populations of this sloth from each other, making breeding among these sloths difficult if not impossible.
Considerations
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In the midst of the rainy season, the sloth begins to blend in with its natural habitat. This occurs because of algae that form on their coats of fur. The algae, green in color, make it hard for a predator to discern the sloth from the green background of leaves. Sloths are excellent swimmers, using waterways beneath some of the trees they inhabit as a means to move to other venues. The sloth will drop into the water and employ the breaststroke to traverse its depths before climbing into another tree.
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