The word sloth comes from the Latin word slothus, which means lazy or sluggish. This animal’s lifestyle—the fact that it spends most of its time hanging upside down from trees—might have contributed to the way it got its name. To this day, the sloth remains one of the laziest animals in the world. Many sloth facts can help you understand why this animal earned such an unflattering label and reputation in history!
1) Where do sloths live?
Sloths live in trees that grow in tropical rainforests in Central and South America. They’re solitary animals, meaning they don’t typically live with or near other sloths. The trees of their habitat are home to many plants, like bromeliads, from which sloths can eat leaves, stems, and even flowers. Without these foods, sloths can become malnourished or even starve to death.
2) What do sloths eat?
A sloth’s diet is specialized to match its slow and careful movement style. They live in trees and eat mostly leaves, twigs, cecropia moth larvae, fungi, lizards, and eggs. There are no predators in their forest so they do not need to worry about escaping from anything that would eat them. They use their long claws to grip onto tree branches as they slowly graze on high leaves or sleep upside down against a tree trunk for many hours at a time during daylight.
The sloths’ are very large mammals. They can grow up to 25-feet long and weigh up to 150 pounds. They have enormous claws and no teeth. An adult sloth needs approximately 200 to 250 tree leaves per day. Their diet consists of green leaves, shoots, young twigs, and tender tree fruits from over 100 species of plants.
4) How many types of sloths are there?
There are six different types of sloths and they vary in size, habitat, diet, and other characteristics. This article will explain these differences in more detail. You can also read about each type of sloth below or at our Complete List of Sloths.
5) Why are some animals endangered?
Because it is not always easy to figure out what makes a certain animal endangered, we have written an overview of some common reasons why animals are put at risk. Animals live everywhere, in many different habitats and climates that may or may not fit their way of life. Environmental changes such as deforestation, industrialization, overpopulation, and climate change can often become deadly for animals due to a lack of food supply or dwindling natural resources.
6) Are all animals in danger of extinction?
No. There are around 4,000 species of mammals on Earth and a few thousand more invertebrates, like insects. The reality is that most animals aren’t in danger of extinction. According to Nature World News, 0.9 percent (9,000 species of mammals) are at risk of extinction. That is not even one-tenth of one percent.
7) Do you know an animal that isn't on this list?
The giant sloth, or Megatherium, is a sight to see. It was once thought to be a creature from prehistoric times that had somehow survived the extinction, but it's an extinct species that went extinct about 11,000 years ago. The giant sloth is also known as Megalonyx jeffersonii and other similar names. These creatures could weigh as much as 6 tons (5443 kilograms) and were up to 13 feet (3.96 meters) long!
8) Baby Sloths!
Baby sloths have nothing on us. Human infants are precocial, meaning they’re capable of surviving outside their mother’s bodies just a few minutes after birth. But baby sloths are altricial: They can’t survive outside their mother’s bodies until they’re at least three months old. When they first emerge from their mother, all they can do is cling to her belly and then, after about a month, begin to eat leaves and crawl around on her back.
9) Baby Animals in General...Too Cute!
If you're not already familiar with these adorable creatures, then you'll quickly become a fan after reading about these sloth facts. Though slow in movement, these nocturnal animals are known for being quite active during their waking hours. For one thing, they spend most of their time high up in trees, while they spend another portion of that time resting on branches.
10) A Look At The Future of Wildlife In Today's World
Sloths are tree-dwelling mammals that live in Central and South America. When they aren’t sleeping (about 15 hours a day), they spend their time munching on leaves, stems, and fruits that are high up in trees. They live very slow lives, moving at about 5 feet an hour—not because of laziness, but because of how it works to their advantage. You see, sloths have algae growing on them! They use these algae as camouflage from predators!
