Sloth (suborder Phyllophaga), tree-dwelling mammal noted for its slowness of movement. All five living species are limited to the lowland tropical forests of South and Central America, where they can be found high in the forest canopy sunning, resting, or feeding on leaves. Although two-toed sloths (family Megalonychidae) are capable of climbing and positioning themselves vertically, they spend almost all of their time hanging horizontally, using their large hooklike extremities to move along branches and vines. Three-toed sloths (family Bradypodidae) move in the same way but often sit in the forks of trees rather than hanging from branches.
Sloths have long legs, stumpy tails, and rounded heads with inconspicuous ears. Although they possess colour vision, sloths’ eyesight and hearing are not very acute; orientation is mainly by touch. The limbs are adapted for suspending the body rather than supporting it. As a result, sloths are completely helpless on the ground unless there is something to grasp. Even then, they are able only to drag themselves along with their claws. They are surprisingly good swimmers. Generally nocturnal, sloths are solitary and are aggressive toward others of the same sex.
Sloths have large multichambered stomachs and an ability to tolerate strong chemicals from the foliage they eat. The leafy food is digested slowly; a fermenting meal may take up to a week to process. The stomach is constantly filled, its contents making up about 30 percent of the sloth’s weight. Sloths descend to the ground at approximately six-day intervals to urinate and defecate (see Sidebar: A moving habitat). Physiologically, sloths are heterothermic—that is, they have imperfect control over their body temperature. Normally ranging between 25 and 35 °C (77 and 95 °F), body temperature may drop to as low as 20 °C (68 °F). At this temperature the animals become torpid. Although heterothermicity makes sloths very sensitive to temperature change, they have thick skin and are able to withstand severe injuries.
All sloths were formerly classified in the same family (Bradypodidae), but two-toed sloths have been found to be so different from three-toed sloths that they are now classified in a separate family (Megalonychidae).
The three-toed sloth (family Bradypodidae) is also called the ai in Latin America because of the high-pitched cry it produces when agitated. All four species belong to the same genus, Bradypus, and the coloration of their short facial hair bestows them with a perpetually smiling expression. The brown-throated three-toed sloth (B. variegatus) occurs in Central and South America from Honduras to northern Argentina; the pale-throated three-toed sloth (B. tridactylus) is found in northern South America; the maned sloth (B. torquatus) is restricted to the small Atlantic forest of southeastern Brazil; and the pygmy three-toed sloth (B. pygmaeus) inhabits the Isla Escudo de Veraguas, a small Caribbean island off the northwestern coast of Panama.
Although most mammals have seven neck vertebrae, three-toed sloths have eight or nine, which permits them to turn their heads through a 270° arc. The teeth are simple pegs, and the upper front pair are smaller than the others; incisor and true canine teeth are lacking. Adults weigh only about 4 kg (8.8 pounds), and the young weigh less than 1 kg (2.2 pounds), possibly as little as 150–250 grams (about 5–9 ounces) at birth. (The birth weight of B. torquatus, for example, is only 300 grams [about 11 ounces].) The head and body length of three-toed sloths averages 58 cm (23 inches), and the tail is short, round, and movable. The forelimbs are 50 percent longer than the hind limbs; all four feet have three long, curved sharp claws. Sloths’ coloration makes them difficult to spot, even though they are very common in some areas. The outer layer of shaggy long hair is pale brown to gray and covers a short, dense coat of black-and-white underfur. The outer hairs have many cracks, perhaps caused by the algae living there. The algae give the animals a greenish tinge, especially during the rainy season. Sexes look alike in the maned sloth, but in the other species males have a large patch (speculum) in the middle of the back that lacks overhair, thus revealing the black dorsal stripe and bordering white underfur, which is sometimes stained yellow to orange. The maned sloth gets its name from the long black hair on the back of its head and neck.
Three-toed sloths, although mainly nocturnal, may be active day or night but spend only about 10 percent of their time moving at all. They sleep either perched in the fork of a tree or hanging from a branch, with all four feet bunched together and the head tucked in on the chest. In this posture the sloth resembles a clump of dead leaves, so inconspicuous that it was once thought these animals ate only the leaves of cecropia trees because in other trees it went undetected. Research has since shown that they eat the foliage of a wide variety of other trees and vines. Locating food by touch and smell, the sloth feeds by hooking a branch with its claws and pulling it to its mouth. Sloths’ slow movements and mainly nocturnal habits generally do not attract the attention of predators such as jaguars and harpy eagles. Normally, three-toed sloths are silent and docile, but if disturbed they can strike out furiously with the sharp foreclaws.
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Reproduction is seasonal in the brown- and pale-throated species; the maned sloth may breed throughout the year. Reproduction in pygmy three-toed sloths, however, has not yet been observed. A single young is born after less than six months’ gestation. Newborn sloths cling to the mother’s abdomen and remain with the mother until at least five months of age. Three-toed sloths are so difficult to maintain in captivity that little is known about their breeding behaviour and other aspects of their life history.
Both species of two-toed sloth (family Megalonychidae), also called unaus, belong to the genus Choloepus. Linnaeus’s two-toed sloth (C. didactylus) lives in northern South America east of the Andes and south to the central Amazon basin. Hoffmann’s two-toed sloth (C. hoffmanni) is found in Central and South America from Nicaragua to Peru and western Brazil. The two species can be distinguished by the colour of the fur on the throat. Hoffmann’s has a conspicuously pale throat, whereas Linnaeus’s is dark.
Like the three-toed sloths, two-toed sloths have a layer of thick, long grayish brown hair with algae growing in it that covers a short coat of underfur. But whereas the three-toed sloth’s outer hairs are cracked transversely, those of the two-toed sloth have longitudinal grooves that harbour algae. The overhair is parted on the abdomen and hangs down over the sides of its body.
Two-toed sloths are slightly larger than three-toed sloths. The head and body are about 60–70 cm (24–27 inches) long, and adults weigh up to 8 kg (17.6 pounds), whereas young weigh only 340 grams (12 ounces) at birth. The two-clawed forelimbs are only somewhat longer than the hind limbs, which have three claws. Although most mammals have seven neck vertebrae, and three-toed sloths have eight or nine, two-toed sloths have only six or seven. Normally docile and reliant on their concealing coloration for protection, two-toed sloths, if molested, will snort and hiss, biting savagely and slashing with their sharp foreclaws.
A single young is born after almost 12 months’ gestation. The offspring emerges head first and face upward as the mother hangs. As soon as the baby’s front limbs are free, it grasps the abdominal hair of the mother and pulls itself to her chest. The mother sometimes assists in birth by pulling on the young. The mother then chews through the umbilical cord, and the young sloth, after its eyes and ears open, clings to the fur of the mother for about five weeks. After it leaves the mother, it reaches maturity in two to three years. In captivity, two toed-sloths have lived more than 20 years; maximum life span is thought to be over 30.
Classification and paleontology
All sloths were formerly included in the family Bradypodidae, but the two-toed sloths have been found to be of a different family, Megalonychidae, whose extinct relatives, the ground sloths, once ranged into areas of the North American continent as far as Alaska and southern Canada. Different species of ground sloths varied greatly in size. Most were small, but one, the giant ground sloth (Megatherium americanum), was the size of an elephant; others were as tall as present-day giraffes. The period of the ground sloths’ extinction coincides approximately with the end of the last Ice Age and the arrival of humans in North America. Sloths are grouped with anteaters in the order Pilosa, which, together with the armadillos, constitutes the magnorder Xenarthra.