Thursday 7 November 2013

Science Facts Thursday: Sloths

We're bringing science facts back, on a Thursday!
We missed doing these regular fun facts.

These week we bring you:


There are two main species of sloth, the three toed and the two toed.

Three toed, like our pal Sloth, look as though they are always smiling, due to their dark markings in their facial colouring. They also have two extra vertebrae in their neck, so can turn their heads almost all the way around! This is handy when keeping an eye out for predators, and people stealing tasty leaves.

The two toed variety spend alot of their time upside down, and are slightly larger than the three toed.


Sloths live in the tropical rainforests of South America.
The Pigmy three toed sloth is currently critically endangered :(


Sloths are vegan. Nomming on mostly leaves, fruit and twigs. Most of their energy is spent climbing down trees once a week for a poop. Their diet means they have a slow metabolism, so they don't need to go to the loo very often, which is handy as they would be pretty defenceless against large predators. 


Due to their lazyness of not washing often, or even moving, algae grows in the fur of sloths which can turn their fur a greenish colour, which is handy for camouflaging amongst the leaves.

So now you know all about sloths and Sloth.

Don't forget to pop back next Thursday for more science facts.

1 comment:

  1. That's just the perfect simple way to talk about sloths! They are so cute! Didn't know about the sloth moths :D

    Kisses
    Sofia G

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