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Here, their relaxed attitude to metabolism comes to the rescue.

A strong current can easily submerge them. Like almost everything a sloth does, though, their swimming is slightly shambolic. If they were unable to swim, then any stream would be impassable. Sloths have to move from tree to tree and area to area in search of food and mates. A rain forest is wet overall but not usually very wet at the tops of its trees.

You might ask why a sloth would ever need to swim. Doing a passable breast stroke, they move faster in water than they do on land. A sloth’s large and bloated stomach acts as a natural aid to buoyancy. Digestion can be a somewhat gassy affair for anyone, and for vegetarians, even more so. This relates in part to their large stomachs. Farmers have a reputation for hard graft, and the sloth is no exception.ĭespite spending most of their lives in trees, sloths are fantastic swimmers. So the moths and algae benefit, but why does the sloth go along with this somewhat distasteful business? Because sloth diets lack variety, they eat the algae and other things living on their body to gain nutrients. The moth itself defecates on the sloth, which feeds the algae living there. The Cryptoses choloepi moth lives exclusively on sloths and lays its eggs exclusively in sloth droppings. This may not be the most alluring threesome, but it’s one that works for sloths. One solution that has recently been suggested involves sloths, their algae, and moths. Why do they do this dangerous activity when they could simply let their droppings drop from the trees? This lengthy process leaves them utterly at the mercy of passing predators. Yet, once a week, they descend from their tree to defecate. They are creatures honed by evolution to live and feed in trees. We have seen the lengths to which sloths go to hide from predators. It turns out that there is a mystery at the heart of how sloths use the bathroom. 7 The Mysterious Bathroom Habits Of The SlothĪnimal defecation is not generally a topic to set the heart racing. With an algal bloom on their back, spotting a sloth is like trying to find a needle in a haystack . . . when the needle is hidden inside a piece of hay. So close is this relationship that the most common type of algae found on sloths, Trichophilus welckeri, is found nowhere else in nature. One of the first gifts that mother sloths give their babies is the algae that will hide them from predators. The algae gives sloths a terrific disguise by turning them green, which makes them harder to spot against the green leaves in which they live. Sloth hair is long, rough, and grooved in such a way as to encourage the presence of bacteria and algae. For the sloth, however, it is a happy relationship. Normally, being slimed by algae is something to be avoided. These symbiotic organisms find the moist and warm environment of sloth hide perfect for growth. No need to run away from a predator if the predator never notices you, but sloths go further than that.Īnother level of camouflage for the sloth is the coating of algae which it cultivates in its fur.

By moving so sedately, the sloth blends into the canopy from which it hangs. rex from seeing you, it is nevertheless much easier for predators to spot a moving target. While it’s probably a myth that standing still would stop a T. It turns out that nature has equipped the sloths with a brilliantly simple way of avoiding predation-moving very, very slowly. How can a creature such as the sloth have evolved to be so seemingly defenseless? While sloths do have their long claws and may swipe at a predator, their low muscle mass makes such an action little more than a warning. This is remarkable, because sloths are twice as large and four times as heavy as spectacled owls. In one case, a small spectacled owl was found to have killed and eaten a sloth. Their jungle home leaves them open to attack by Harpy eagles, which feed mostly on sloths.īut it’s not just fearsomely large animals that prey on sloths. As the video above shows, even when in their arboreal homes, they can fall prey to pumas. Surely an animal that rarely moves more than 40 meters (130 ft) in a day must live a carefree and positively Zen lifestyle? Alas, nature is red in tooth and claw, and the sloth makes a tempting target for many predators.