Sloth - Small Mammal Building

While at the sloth exhibit you can share the following information with those with you. The student worksheets have blanks for them to fill in. The answers are the BOLD words in the following statements:

1. Sloths are designed to be the ultimate ENERGY saving machine in the mammal world. By being so slow they use 90% LESS energy than a typical mammal.

2. Three toed sloths are so slow it would take them almost a MONTH to travel a mile on the ground. Their digestive system is also so slow that it takes their body one MONTH to digest a SINGLE leaf!

3. Sloths leave the trees once a week to POOP!

4. Sloths sleep up to 20 HOURS a day and are native to the tropical forests of CENTRAL and SOUTH America.

5. Sloths are GREAT swimmers, and that's because they have approximately 25-30% LESS muscle mass than other mammals which makes them very buoyant.

6. Three toed sloths have EXTRA VERTEBRA in the neck allowing them to rotate their head 270 DEGREES.

BONUS INFORMATION:

A. Sloths help fight breast cancer in humans! How you ask, great question! Because sloths are so slow they have a variety of algae and fungi growing in their fur. As scientists studied this fungi they found out that it actually fights breast cancer cells. They think it's also going to help with malaria.

B. And speaking of the algae and fungi a sloth also host a diverse community of insects, mites and ticks. (In one case, scientists found 980 beetles in the fur of a single animal). Many of these residents are found nowhere else. To them, the sloth is the only world they know. Sloths are their own mini-ecosystem. The three-toed sloth even has designs that help it cultivate these partners. For example, its hair contains cracks that collect rainwater, and acts as miniature hydroponic gardens for growing algae.

C. Why don't sloths get dizzy while hanging upside down? Another great question. When the gangly animals do move upside down through the trees, they travel so slowly that the fluid in their middle ear is always stable, which prevents them from getting dizzy.

GO TO THE RED RUMPED AGOUTI NEXT.