Sloth

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Biography

Sloths are the six species of medium-sized mammal s belonging to the family (biology)|families two-toed sloth|Megalonychidae (two-toed sloth) and three-toed sloth|Bradypodidae (three-toed sloth), part of the order (biology)|order Pilosa and therefore related to armadillo s and anteater s, which sport a similar set of specialized claws.

They are arboreal locomotion|arboreal (tree dwelling) residents of the tropical rainforest|jungles of Central America|Central and South America .

Taxonomy and names

The sloth's taxonomic taxonomic rank|suborder is Folivora , while some call it Phyllophaga . Both names mean "leaf-eaters"; derived from Latin and Greek language|Greek respectively. 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 .

Ecology

Sloths are classified as folivore s 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 insect s, small reptiles and birds as a small supplement to their diet. Linnaeus's two-toed sloth has recently been documented eating human feces from open latrines. 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 large, specialized, slow-acting stomach s with multiple compartments in which symbiosis|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 metabolism|metabolic rates (less than half of that expected for a mammal of their size), and maintain low body temperatures when active (30–34 °C or 86–93 °F), and still lower temperatures when resting.

Although unable to survive outside the tropical rainforests of South and Central America, within that environment sloths are outstandingly successful creatures. Four of the six living species are presently rated "least concern"; the maned three-toed sloth ( Bradypus torquatus ), which inhabits Brazil's dwindling Atlantic Forest , is classified as "endangered", while the island-dwelling pygmy three-toed sloth ( B. pygmaeus ) is critically endangered.

Physiology

Sloth fur exhibits specialized functions: the outer hairs grow in a direction opposite from that of other mammals. In most mammals hairs grow toward the extremities, but because sloths spend so much time with their legs above their bodies, their hairs grow away from the extremities in order to provide protection from the elements while the sloth hangs upside down. In most conditions, the fur hosts two species of symbiosis|symbiotic cyanobacteria , which provide camouflage. Because of the cyanobacteria, sloth fur is a small ecosystem of its own, hosting many species of non-parasitic insects. Sloths have short, flat heads; big eyes; a short snout; long legs; and tiny ears. They might have stubby tails (6–7& nbsp;cm long), but not in all species. Altogether, sloths' bodies usually are anywhere between 50 and 60& nbsp;cm long.

Sloths' claws serve as their only natural defence. A cornered sloth may swipe at its attackers in an effort to scare them away or wound them. Despite sloths' apparent defencelessness, predators do not pose special problems: sloths camouflage#In nature|blend in with the trees and, moving only slowly, do not attract attention. Only during their infrequent visits to ground level do they become vulnerable. The main predators of sloths are the jaguar , the American Harpy Eagle|harpy eagle , and humans. The majority of recorded sloth deaths in Costa Rica are due to contact with electric power transmission|electrical lines and poaching|poachers . Despite their adaptation to living in trees, sloths make competent swimmers. Their claws also provide a further unexpected deterrent to human hunters: when hanging upside-down in a tree they are held in place by the claws themselves and often do not fall down even if shot from below.

Sloths move only when necessary and even then very slowly: they have about a quarter as much muscle tissue as other animals of similar weight. They can move at a marginally higher speed if they are in immediate danger from a predator (4& nbsp;m or 13 feet per minute for the three-toed sloth), but they burn large amounts of energy doing so. Their specialised hands and feet have long, curved claws to allow them to hang upside-down from branches without effort.Mendel, 1979; 1981a; 1981b; 1985 While they sometimes sit on top of branches, they usually eat, sleep, and even give birth hanging from limbs. They sometimes remain hanging from branches after death. On the ground the maximum speed of the three-toed sloth is 2& nbsp;m or 6.5 feet per minute.

It had been thought that sloths were among the most somnolence|somnolent animals, sleeping from 15 to 18 hours each day. Recently, however, Dr. Neil Rattenborg and his colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Starnberg, Germany, published a study testing sloth sleep-patterns in the wild; this is the first study of its kind. The study indicated that sloths sleep just under 10 hours a day.

Sloths go to the ground to urinate and defecate about once a week, digging a hole and covering it afterwards. They go to the same spot each time and are vulnerable to predation while doing so. The reason for this risky behavior is unknown, although some believe that it is to avoid making noise while defecating from up high that would attract predators. Consistent with this, they reportedly relieve themselves from their branches during storms in the rainy season. Another possible explanation is that the middens provide the sloths with one of their few methods of finding one another for breeding purposes, since their sense of smell is far more acute than their eyesight or hearing. It has also been pointed out that individual sloths tend to spend the bulk of their time feeding on a single "modal" tree; by burying their excreta near the trunk of that tree, they may help nourish it.

Infant sloths normally cling to their mothers' fur, but occasionally fall off. Sloths are very sturdily built and rarely die from a fall. In some cases they die from a fall indirectly because the mothers prove unwilling to leave the safety of the trees to retrieve the young. Females normally bear one baby every year, but sometimes sloths' low level of movement actually keeps females from finding males for longer than one year.

Almost all mammal s have seven cervical vertebrae or "neck bones" (including those with very short necks, such as elephant s or whale s, and those with very long necks, such as giraffe s). The few exceptions include manatee s and two-toed sloths, which each have only six cervical vertebrae, and three-toed sloths with nine cervical vertebrae.

Evolution

Sloths are members of the superorder Xenarthra , a group of mammal s that appeared approximately 60 million years ago, although at least one source puts the date at which sloths and related animals broke off from other placental mammals at about 100 million years ago. Also included among the Xenarthra are anteaters and armadillos . The earliest xenarthrans were arboreal locomotion|arboreal herbivore s with sturdy spines, fused pelvises, stubby teeth and small brains.

The living sloths belong to one of two families, known as the Megalonychidae ("two-toed" sloths) and the Bradypodidae (three-toed sloths). All living sloths have in fact three toe s; the "two-toed" sloths, however, have only two finger s. Two-toed sloths are generally faster moving than three-toed sloths. Both types tend to occupy the same forests: in most areas, one species of three-toed sloth and one species of the larger two-toed type will jointly predominate.

However, their adaptation s belie the actual relationships of the living sloth genus|genera , which are more distant from each other than their outward similarity suggests. The common ancestor of the two genera apparently lived 35–40 million years ago, making the living forms stunning examples of convergent evolution|convergent or parallel evolution . The two-toed sloths of today are far more closely related to one particular group of ground sloths than to the living three-toed sloths. Whether these ground-dwelling Megalonychidae were descended from tree-climbing ancestors or whether the two-toed sloths are really miniature ground sloths converted (or reverted) to arboreal life cannot presently be determined to satisfaction. The latter possibility seems slightly more likely, given the fact that the small ground sloths Acratocnus and Neocnus which were also able to climb are among the closer relatives of the two-toed sloths, and that these together were related to the huge ground sloths Megalonyx and Megalocnus .

The evolution ary history of the three-toed sloths is not well known. No particularly close relatives, ground-dwelling or not, have yet been identified.

The ground sloths do not constitute a clade|monophyletic group. Rather, they make up a number of lineages, and as far as is known until the Holocene most sloths were in fact ground-dwellers. The famous Megatherium , for example, belonged to a lineage of ground sloths that was not very close to the living sloths and their ground-living relatives, like the small Neocnus or the massive Megalonyx . Meanwhile, Mylodon , among the last ground sloths to disappear, was only very distantly related to either of these.

Classification

Suborder Folivora (sloths)

Family Bradypodidae ( three-toed sloth s)

* Bradypus

** Pale-throated sloth ( Bradypus tridactylus ))

** Brown-throated sloth ( Bradypus variegatus )

** Maned sloth ( Bradypus torquatus )

** Pygmy three-toed sloth ( Bradypus pygmaeus )

Family Megalonychidae (two-toed sloths and extinct ground sloths)

* Choloepus ( Two-toed sloth s)

** Hoffmann's two-toed sloth ( Choloepus hoffmanni )

** Linnaeus's two-toed sloth ( Choloepus didactylus )

* Acratocnus

* Habanocnus

* Neocnus

* Imagocnus

* Megalocnus

* Megalonyx

Family Megatheriidae (megatheriid ground sloths)

* Eremotherium

* Hapalops

* Megatherium

* Nothropus

Family Mylodontidae (mylodontid ground sloths)

* Glossotherium

* Lestodon

* Mylodon

* Paramylodon

* Scelidotherium

* Chubutherium

Family Nothrotheriidae (nothrotheriid ground sloths)

* Nothrotheriops

* Nothrotherium

* Thalassocnus

Family Orophodontidae (orophodontid ground sloths)

Extinction

Until geologically recent times, ground sloth s such as Megatherium lived in South America and parts of North America , but along with many other animals they disappeared shortly after the arrival of humans on the continent. Much evidence suggests that human hunting contributed to the extinction of the American megafauna , like that of far northern Asia , Australia , New Zealand , and Madagascar . Simultaneous climate change that came with the end of the last Ice age may have also played a role in some cases. However, the fact that Megalocnus|ground sloths survived on the Antilles long after they had died out on the mainland points toward human activities as the agency of extinction.

Gallery

file:Zoo Dortmund Faultier.jpg| Choloepus sp., Dortmund Zoo
file:Megatherium americanum Skeleton NHM.JPG| Megatherium fossil, Natural History Museum , London
file:Scelidotherium leptocephalum side.jpg| Scelidotherium|Scelidotherium leptocephalum fossil. Muséum national d'histoire naturelle , Paris
file:Three-toed Tree Sloth enjoying a snack.jpg| Brown-throated three-toed sloth at Dallas World Aquarium
file:giant ground sloth Iowa.JPG|Reconstruction of giant ground sloth based on Megalonyx jeffersonii , Iowa Museum of Natural History

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