Did you know there are two types of sloths, two toed and three toed. Both types have three toes on their hind feet but the toe toed, as you can guess, only has two toes on the front limbs. The two toed is also bigger, has a larger snout, longer fur and no tail. Two toed sloths also prefer to climb down trees head first while three toed prefer to go butt first.
-Sloths have adapted to living in the trees in a variety of ways
-Leaves, their primary food source, are not very nutritious, so they have large, slow acting stomachs with multiple compartments with symbiotic bacteria to break down leaves
-They have a very slow metbolism and low body temperatures (30-34 degrees Celcius)
-Sloth fur grows in the opposite direction from other mammals because they spend so much time upside down
-Most sloths have cynobacteria (blue-green algae) in their fur that helps to camouflage the animal in trees
-Sloths sleep about 10 hours a day as discovered by Dr. Rattenborg at the Max Planck Institute in Germany
-Individuals spend most of their time in one specific tree and approximately 1 time a week climb to the base of the tree to deficiate, it is thought this is to help nourish their “home” tree
Santa Rosa Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre 