18.10.20 Animal Of The Week: Sloth

Hello,

Sorry this didn't come out on Sunday as planned but this week's animal of the week is the sloth because the twentieth of October is Sloth Day.

Habitat

The sloth resides in Central and South America. It lives in the rainforests there and occasionally drops into the water for a bathe as, believe it or not, they are actually excellent swimmers!

Diet

Sloths eat leaves, twigs and buds which they find in the rainforest. As they don't have incisors they smack their lips together to make leaves more digestible. Sloths can survive on relatively little food as it takes a while for them to digest it.

Sleep and Speed

When you think of a sloth, you probably think of this slow, sleepy creature. They actually sleep for about 15 hours a day! Sloths have an extremely low metabolic rate (what basic calories your body needs to survive), which means they move at a slow pace through the trees. On average, sloths travel 40 yards per day which is less than half the length of a football field!

Are they endangered?

There are a few different types of sloth and some are endangered. The pygmy sloth is critically endangered while the maned sloth is vulnerable. The others are all okay for now. The main problem for them is habitat loss as you probably all know the amount of rainforest that has been cut down.

Thank you so much for reading this and we hope you have found this interesting.

Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/animal/sloth
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/sloth

Image:
This image is owned by Palu Malerba (on pexels.com).

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