Sloths | Lazy and Slowest of all
Folivora commonly known as sloths spend most of their lives on trees, are Arboreal. Besides their looks these are extremely slow-moving creatures with incredible strength and strong muscles. They can see the world in colour, but have poor vision as well as poor hearing, forcing them to rely on their sense of smell and touch to find food. Sloths have an extremely slow metabolism, which is less than half of the norm for mammals and have lower temperatures too. They are heterothermic, which means that their body temperature can change depending on the environment. Their body temperature ranges from 25°C to 35°C, but can drop to 20°C, causing them to have slower metabolism and movement speed, called torpor (yes, they can get slower). The sloth's fur, in most conditions, has a symbiotic algae, which provides the sloth camouflage. because of this algae, the sloth's fur becomes an ecosystem of its own, providing shelter to many insects and arthropods, mainly moths, as they fertilise the algae, providing them with nutrients.
Sloths have limbs made for climbing only and not for supporting their weight, which forces them to drag themselves along the ground when they are not on a tree. They move at an astounding speed of 4 meters per minute, and 4.5 meters per minute if in danger. Sloths are surprisingly fast swimmers, going at 13.5 meters in a minute. They can slow down their metabolism even further, which makes their heart rate slower by a third, allowing them to hold their breath for 40 minutes under water.
Baby sloths learn what to eat by licking the lips of their mother, and all sloths eat the leaves of the cecropia tree. Leaves which are their main food source, do not provide very little energy, which is the reason of its slow metabolism and movement. When leaves are ingested by the sloth, they are not easily digested, so sloths have large multichambered stomachs, containing symbiotic bacteria which helps in breakdown of the food. A sloth who's well fed, 2/3 weight of theirs consists of the contents of its stomach. this digestion process takes a month or more to complete.
Let your Mind free,
Let your Imagination roam.
Comments
Post a Comment