December 20, 2017 | Eva Blanchefleur

Slow Facts About Sloths


They’re slow, they’re furry, and they’re an internet sensation! You don’t need to be Kristen Bell to completely freak out over how adorable sloths are. These friendly creatures spend pretty much their entire lives hanging from trees in the rainforest, but they have become one of the internet's favorite animals. Here are 42 adorable facts about one of nature’s slowest but sweetest animals, sloths!


42. Sloth Habitat

Sloths live in the tropical rainforests of Central America and northern South America. You can find these cute, slow little furballs in the forests of Costa Rica, Brazil, and Nicaragua, among others.

Sloths FactsGetty Images

41. Misnomer

Sloths are divided into two groups: two-toed sloths and three-toed sloths. It’s a bit of a misnomer, however, as all sloths have three toes (that is, on their hind legs). The difference is on their front paws: two-toed sloths have two fingers on their front paws, and three-toed sloths have three fingers.

Sloths FactsFlickr

40. Night and Day

No matter what time of day it is, you can find a sloth awake and active. Three-toed sloths are diurnal, which means they’re awake during the day. Two-toed sloths are nocturnal, meaning they sleep during the day and are awake at night.

Sloths FactsShutterstock

39. Perfect Size for Snuggling

Adult sloths can be 60-80 cm long and weigh from 3.6 to 7.7 kilograms. That’s the perfect size for cuddling, if you ask me!

Sloths FactsShutterstock

Advertisement

38. Ancient Giants

Sloths are small today, but their ancestors loomed large. An ancient ancestor of the sloth, called Megatherium (or the “giant ground sloth”) roamed what is now South America during the Pliocene and Pleistocene era. Megatherium was the size of an elephant, but you don’t have to worry about meeting one today—they've gone extinct.

Sloths FactsWikipedia, Nobu Tamura

37. What’s In A Name?

The name “sloth” literally means slow and lazy. Algae even grows on their fur!

Sloths FactsGetty Images

36. Sloth Indeed

Three-toed sloths can spend a lot of time sleeping! They can spend up to 90% of their time completely motionless.

Sloths FactsPixabay

35. Moldy but Goody

The algae that live in sloths' fur are beneficial to the slow animals: in the rainy season, the algae turn green and help camouflage the sloth. When it’s dry, the algae turn brown.

Sloths FactsShutterstock

34. Greek to Me

The scientific name for sloth is Bradypus, which is Greek for “slow feet.” Slowness really is their defining characteristic!

Sloths FactsMax Pixel

Factinate

Sign up to our newsletter.

History’s most fascinating stories and darkest secrets, delivered to your inbox daily. Making distraction rewarding since 2017.

Thank you!
Error, please try again.

33. Owly

Almost all mammals have seven cervical vertebrae, but three-toed sloths have nine! This allows them to rotate their heads almost 270 degrees.

Sloths FactsGetty Images

Advertisement

32. Unappetizing Meal

Sloths have very little muscle mass—only 25-30% of their bodies are muscle, compared to 40-45% in most mammals. Their low muscle mass—plus their huge guts, full of fermenting plants, and all the algae and insects living in their fur—often make sloths a less than appealing meal to predators.

Sloths FactsWikipedia

31. Sound of Love

When female sloths are in in heat, they let out loud screams to attract males. Sounds romantic!

Sloths FactsGetty Images

30. Wham Bam Thank You Ma’am

Mating is just about the only thing that sloths do quickly! The entire ordeal—including foreplay—takes only 5 seconds.

Sloths FactsGetty Images

29. Presidential Connection

Thomas Jefferson was an avid paleontologist, and helped discover fossils from an ancient sloth species, later named Megalonyx Jefersoni. It was the first giant sloth species found in North America!

Sloths FactsWikipedia

28. Slow Food

If you think sloths' movement is slow, you should check out their digestive system. It can take up to 30 days for sloths to fully digest a piece of food!

Sloths FactsMax Pixel

27. Bathroom Routine

With such a slow system, it’s no wonder that sloths defecate just once a week. A sloth can lose around 1/3 of its bodyweight after a single bowel movement.

Excruciating Minutes FactsMax Pixel

Advertisement

26. The Poo Dance

When sloths defecate, they descend from the trees and choose a spot at the base of their tree. While defecating, they perform a “poo dance,” moving side to side until they’re finished. They bury their waste, and it’s thought that they help nourish their tree in this way.

Sloths FactsShutterstock

25. Risky Business

When sloths venture down from the trees to engage in their weekly bathroom habit, they make themselves very vulnerable to predators.

Sloths FactsPixabay

24. Cycle of Life

A certain species of moth lives in the fur of the sloth. When sloths poop, the moths lay eggs on the feces, which hatch into larvae and feed on the fecal matter. When the moths mature, they simply fly up to the sloth, where they make their home, completing the cycle.

Sloths FactsFlickr

23. Picky Eaters

Three-toed sloths have a very restricted diet, eating only leaves from a few tree species. No mammal on earth digests as slowly as the three-toed sloth!

Sloths FactsShutterstock

22. Smorgasbord

Two-toed sloths eat a wider selection of food: They dine on leaves as well, but will also eat insects, carrion, fruits, nuts, and small lizards. They’ll even eat the algae that grows in their own fur.

Sloths FactsPexels

 

21. Symbiotic

Sloths have very large stomachs, and the bacteria that live inside them help to ferment and digest their food. If the sloth’s body temperature drops too low, the bacteria will stop working, and the sloth can starve, even if it has a full belly!

Sloths FactsShutterstock

Advertisement

20. Self-Defence

Sloths have special claws that are 3 to 4 inches long, which allow them to hang from branches without effort. But the claws come in handy in other ways—if a sloth is caught on the ground by a predator, they use their powerful claws defend themselves!

Sloths FactsGetty Images

19. Slow Movers

Sloths aren’t very agile on the ground; their legs are adapted to climbing trees, not walking. They drag themselves along in a crawl of about 4 metres per minute—only 4.5 metres (15 ft) per minute if trying to escape a predator!

Sloths FactsPxHere

18. Strong Swimmers

It might be a surprise, but while sloths are slow on land, they’re quite happy in water. They can swim three times faster than they can travel on land, and they use their long arms to do a sort of doggy paddle—sorry, a slothy paddle.

Sloths FactsShutterstock

17. Deep Breaths

Not only can sloths swim, they can also hold their breath for an astounding 40 minutes! They can slow their already-slow metabolism even further, to the point that their heart rate is less than a third of the normal rate.

Sloths FactsShutterstock

16. Saving Swimmers

The easiest way for a sloth to get down into the water is to drop directly from the trees. Some tourists see sloths fall and swim, and try to save the sloths they presume are drowning, not knowing that sloths are strong, happy swimmers! If you see a sloth swimming down the river, chances are that’s right where it wants to be.

Sloths FactsShutterstock

15. All In Their Chests

A new study suggests why it’s easy for sloths to hang upside-down for up to 90% of their lives without experiencing any trouble breathing. Researchers at Swansea University found that sloths’ internal organs are stuck down, so they don’t press on the lungs when the sloth is upside-down.

Sloths FactsPxHere

14. Hard To Tell

Sloths are not very sexually dimorphic. That means there aren’t many differences between males and females (unlike birds species with highly decorated males, or species where males and females differ in size). It can be extremely difficult to tell if a sloth is male or female, and several zoos have received sloths of the wrong sex.

Sloths FactsFlickr

13. Snoozin’

In the wild, sloths sleep up to 10 hours a day. However, in captivity, they can spend 15-20 hours a day asleep!

Sloths FactsShutterstock

12. Wacky Family

Sloths are taxonomically related to some other strange animals. They're related to anteaters and armadillos!

THE PLAYERS Championship - Preview Day 3. Armadillo close-up.Getty Images

11. A Mother’s Kiss

Sloth mamas generally have one baby a year, who will stay with them until they’re five months old. Sloths learn which foods to eat by licking the lips of their mothers.

Sloths FactsPixabay

10. Adorable Physiology

Baby sloths are born with their eyes open and with all their fur and nails! They spend their first few months living on mama’s belly, nursing from nipples located in the mother sloth’s armpits.

Sloths FactsFlickr

9. Safe Haven

The world’s only sloth sanctuary is located in Costa Rica. The Sloth Sanctuary is run by “sloth whisperer” Judy Arroyo and is home to approximately 160 sloths, many whom have been orphaned or injured.

Sloths FactsShutterstock

8. Hangin’ with Mom

Sloth babies leave their mother’s bellies and venture onto their own branches after several weeks, but they can still stay by mom’s side for up to 4 years.

Sloths FactsShutterstock

7. Sloth Senses

Sloths have color vision, but their eyesight is very poor. They also have a very poor sense of hearing. Sloths rely mostly on their sense of touch and their sense of smell to find food.

Sloths FactsFlickr

 

6. Even In Death

Sloths are so well-adapted to hanging from trees, it’s literally effortless for them. Sloths can remain hanging from branches even after death.

Sloths FactsMax Pixel

5. Natural Dangers

Sloths spend their days blissfully hanging from trees, but they do have some worries: predators of the sloth include jaguars, ocelots, and harpy eagles. Unlike the sloths, eagles have excellent eyesight and can spot sloths as they nap in the trees, and may swoop down to grab them.

Sloths FactsWikimedia Commons, Haui Ared

4. At Risk

While sloths do have some natural predators in the jungle, the biggest threat to the sloth today is loss of their natural habitat. While the Earth was once covered with 40% rainforest, today that amount is only 6%, and it’s possible the rainforests will be gone entirely within the next 40 years.

Sloths FactsPxHere

3. Miniature Worlds

Sloths are slow, but they’re far from simple. Jonathan Pauli, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, suggests that you can look at a sloth not as individual but as a whole ecosystem. On sloths live flora (algae) and fauna (beetles and moths), plus a variety of mites and ticks. Some of these insects live only on sloths, and nowhere else on earth! Sloth fur is made of cracked hairs that collect rainwater, nourishing the algae that lives therein. One researcher even found 980 beetles on a single sloth!

Sloths FactsGetty Images

2. Sweet-Smelling Sloth

Okay, creatures covered in algae might not smell sweet. But sloths do not stink—they don’t sweat or have natural body odor. This helps them avoid predators!

Sloths FactsShutterstock

1. Stick Your Tongue Out!

Sloths have very long tongues! Sloth tongues can extend 10 to 12 inches out of their mouths!

Sloths FactsShutterstock

Sources:  123456789101112


More from Factinate

Featured Article

My mom never told me how her best friend died. Years later, I was using her phone when I made an utterly chilling discovery.

Dark Family Secrets

Dark Family Secrets Exposed

Nothing stays hidden forever—and these dark family secrets are proof that when the truth comes out, it can range from devastating to utterly chilling.
April 8, 2020 Samantha Henman

Featured Article

Madame de Pompadour was the alluring chief mistress of King Louis XV, but few people know her dark history—or the chilling secret shared by her and Louis.

Madame de Pompadour Facts

Entrancing Facts About Madame de Pompadour, France's Most Powerful Mistress

Madame de Pompadour was the alluring chief mistress of King Louis XV, but few people know her dark history—or the chilling secret shared by her and Louis.
December 7, 2018 Kyle Climans

More from Factinate

Featured Article

I tried to get my ex-wife served with divorce papers. I knew that she was going to take it badly, but I had no idea about the insane lengths she would go to just to get revenge and mess with my life.

These People Got Genius Revenges

When someone really pushes our buttons, we'd like to think that we'd hold our head high and turn the other cheek, but revenge is so, so sweet.
April 22, 2020 Scott Mazza

Featured Article

Catherine of Aragon is now infamous as King Henry VIII’s rejected queen—but few people know her even darker history.

Catherine of Aragon Facts

Tragic Facts About Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s First Wife

Catherine of Aragon is now infamous as King Henry VIII’s rejected queen—but very few people know her even darker history.
June 7, 2018 Christine Tran



Dear reader,


Want to tell us to write facts on a topic? We’re always looking for your input! Please reach out to us to let us know what you’re interested in reading. Your suggestions can be as general or specific as you like, from “Life” to “Compact Cars and Trucks” to “A Subspecies of Capybara Called Hydrochoerus Isthmius.” We’ll get our writers on it because we want to create articles on the topics you’re interested in. Please submit feedback to contribute@factinate.com. Thanks for your time!


Do you question the accuracy of a fact you just read? At Factinate, we’re dedicated to getting things right. Our credibility is the turbo-charged engine of our success. We want our readers to trust us. Our editors are instructed to fact check thoroughly, including finding at least three references for each fact. However, despite our best efforts, we sometimes miss the mark. When we do, we depend on our loyal, helpful readers to point out how we can do better. Please let us know if a fact we’ve published is inaccurate (or even if you just suspect it’s inaccurate) by reaching out to us at contribute@factinate.com. Thanks for your help!


Warmest regards,



The Factinate team




Want to learn something new every day?

Join thousands of others and start your morning with our Fact Of The Day newsletter.

Thank you!

Error, please try again.