Sloth Is a Friendly Animal
Sloths are the six species of medium-sized mammals belonging to the families Megalonychidae and Bradypodidae, part of the order Pilosa. They are arboreal residents of the rainforests of Central and South America. The sloth's taxonomic suborder is Folivora, while some call it Phyllophaga. Both names mean "leaf-eaters"; the first is derived from Latin, the second from Greek. Names for the animals used by tribes in Ecuador include Ritto, Rit and Ridette, mostly forms of the word "sleep", "eat" and "dirty" from Tagaeri tribe of Huaorani, in Brazil sloths are commonly called "Bicho-preguiça" ("lazy animal") because of slow movements related to their very low metabolism.
Contents
[hide]
• 1 Ecology
• 2 Physiology
• 3 Classification
• 4 Extinction
• 5 Media
• 6 References
• 7 External links
[edit] Ecology
Feeding Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth (Bradypus variegatus), Cahuita National Park, Costa Rica
Sloths are classified as folivores as the bulk of their diet consists mostly of buds, tender shoots, and leaves, mainly of Cecropia trees. Some two-toed sloths have been documented as eating insects, small reptiles and birds as a small supplement to their diet. Linnaeus's Two-toed Sloth has recently been documented eating human faeces from open latrines.[2] They have made extraordinary adaptations to an arboreal browsing lifestyle. Leaves, their main food source, provide very little energy or nutrition and do not digest easily. Sloths therefore have very large, specialized, slow-acting stomachs with multiple compartments in which symbiotic bacteria break down the tough leaves. As much as two-thirds of a well-fed sloth's body-weight consists of the contents of its stomach, and the digestive process can take a month or more to complete.
Even so, leaves provide little energy, and sloths deal with this by a range of economy measures: they have very low metabolic rates (less than half of that expected for a mammal of their size), and maintain low body
Contents
[hide]
• 1 Ecology
• 2 Physiology
• 3 Classification
• 4 Extinction
• 5 Media
• 6 References
• 7 External links
[edit] Ecology
Feeding Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth (Bradypus variegatus), Cahuita National Park, Costa Rica
Sloths are classified as folivores as the bulk of their diet consists mostly of buds, tender shoots, and leaves, mainly of Cecropia trees. Some two-toed sloths have been documented as eating insects, small reptiles and birds as a small supplement to their diet. Linnaeus's Two-toed Sloth has recently been documented eating human faeces from open latrines.[2] They have made extraordinary adaptations to an arboreal browsing lifestyle. Leaves, their main food source, provide very little energy or nutrition and do not digest easily. Sloths therefore have very large, specialized, slow-acting stomachs with multiple compartments in which symbiotic bacteria break down the tough leaves. As much as two-thirds of a well-fed sloth's body-weight consists of the contents of its stomach, and the digestive process can take a month or more to complete.
Even so, leaves provide little energy, and sloths deal with this by a range of economy measures: they have very low metabolic rates (less than half of that expected for a mammal of their size), and maintain low body