SLOTHS

Perhaps my favorite animal found the rainforest is the sloth. Costa Rica is home to two of the five species of sloth, the two-toed (Chollepus hoffmanni) and three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus).

The sloth is the slowest mammal on Earth. It takes a month for a sloth to move 1 kilometer!

Sloths are arboreal animals, which means that they spend most of their lives hanging upside-down from tree branches. They eat, sleep, mate, and give birth upside-down in the trees. They hold onto tree branches with strong, curved claws that are on each of their four feet

Sloths are herbivores. They eat leaves, tender young trees, and fruit. But it's hard to find time to eat during the sloth's busy schedule that includes sleeping about 15-18 hours each day.

The main difference between the two-toed and three-toed sloths (besides the number of toes) is that the three-toed sloth is diurnal and the two-toed sloth is nocturnal. Both of the animals are about 1.5 - 2 feet in length. Both species have a stumpy tail.

Everything a sloth does is slow. It chews slowly, blinks its eyes slowly, and definitely moves slowly. Sloths have a low metabolic rate and a low body temperature (91°F). This allows them to eat very slowly (and only need a little bit of food), and they don't require much water, because they don't expend much energy. It takes nearly a week for a sloth to digest one meal.

Sloths are related to anteaters, a group of mammals known as edentates. Anteaters and other edentates don't have teeth. However, sloths have small teeth which they use to chew up their leafy food.