Sloth - The Slowest Moving Mammals only 2 Meters per Minute

Sloth is the slowest mammal. On land, sloths move only about 2 m per minute. In trees, sloths move only about 4 m per minute.

Slot Inaction give benefit for the sloth. In sloths habitat there is a major predator, Eagle. The Sharp eyesight of Eagle and its deft to catch prey, making them a great hunters. Fortunately for sloth, slow movement makes it difficult for eagle to detect sloth. Eagle just saw sloths as inanimate objects that do not move.

Facts about Sloth

• Sloths are arboreal (tree-dwelling) residents of the tropical rainforests of Central and South America
• Sloths are classified as folivores, as the bulk of their diets consist of buds, tender shoots, and leaves, mainly of Cecropia trees. Some two-toed sloths have been documented as eating insects, small reptiles, and birds as a small supplement to their diets. Linnaeus's two-toed sloth has recently been documented eating human faeces from open latrines.
• Leaves, their main food source, provide very little energy or nutrients, and do not digest easily. 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.
• Sloths were thought to be among the most 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 behaviour is unknown, although some believe it is to avoid making noise while defecating from up high that would attract predators.
• 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. Female Sloths normally bear one baby every year, but sometimes sloths' low level of movement actually keeps females from finding males for longer than one year.

Scientific Classification of Sloth:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Subclass: Theria
Infraclass: Eutheria
Superorder: Xenarthra
Order: Pilosa
Suborder: Folivora
Family :

Family Bradypodidae (three-toed sloths)
- 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 sloths)

• Hoffmann's two-toed sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni)
• Linnaeus's two-toed sloth (Choloepus didactylus)

- Acratocnus
- Habanocnus
- Imagocnus
- Megalocnus
- Megalonyx
- Neocnus

Family Megatheriidae (extinct ground sloths)
- Eremotherium
- Hapalops
- Megatherium
- Prepotherium
- Promegatherium

Family Mylodontidae (extinct ground sloths)
- Glossotherium
- Lestodon
- Mylodon
- Paramylodon
- Scelidotherium
- Chubutherium

Family Nothrotheriidae (extinct ground sloths)
- Mionothropus
- Nothropus
- Nothrotheriops
- Nothrotherium
- Pronothrotherium
- Thalassocnus