Three-toed sloth crossing a road in Costa Rica Sloths are a Neotropical group of xenarthran mammals constituting the suborder Folivora, including the extant arboreal tree sloths and extinct terrestrial ground sloths. Noted for their slowness of movement, tree sloths spend most of their lives hanging upside down in the trees of the tropical rainforests of South America and Central America ...
Sloth, tree-dwelling mammal noted for its slowness of movement. All six living species are limited to the lowland tropical forests of South and Central America. They can be found in the forest canopy sunning, resting, or feeding on leaves. Sloths are classified with anteaters and armadillos in the magnorder Xenarthra.
In fact, the brown‐throated sloth species holds the record for the slowest metabolism of any mammal. 15 As a result, a sloth’s body takes an extra long time to digest the food it eats. And since sloths mainly eat leaves, which are low in calories and hard to break down, this takes even more time and energy.
Sloths are far from being simple, lazy creatures that just sleep all day. They are complex, mysterious animals with an evolutionary history, features, and characteristics so weird that you might accuse us of making them up.
It's a good thing sloths don't have to go to school. They'd never make it on time. These drowsy tree-dwellers sleep up to 20 hours a day! And even when they are awake, they barely move at all. In fact, they're so incredibly sluggish, algae actually grows on their fur. Sloths live in the tropical forests of Central and South America. With their long arms and shaggy fur, they resemble monkeys ...
Top 10 facts about Sloths Discover more about the Sloth, the issues and threats they are facing, and what you can do to help.
The pale-throated three-toed sloth is found in northern parts of South America (typically north of the Amazon River and east of the Andes), while the maned three-toed sloth is restricted to the Atlantic Forest of southeastern Brazil. The pygmy three-toed sloth is endemic to Isla Escudo de Veraguas, an island off the coast of Panama.
Discover the slow-moving sloth, its unique adaptations, and WWF’s efforts to protect its tropical forest home.