Sloths

Written by Sorcha

On Tuesday we went on a walk with a guide in a forest called the Bogarin Trail in La Fortuna. La Fortuna is at the base of an active volcano called Arenal. On the hike, we saw lots of animals including: snakes, anteaters, frogs, owls, toucans and lots of other beautiful and exotic birds! But for me the most exciting animal we saw were the sloths! Yes the slow, sleepy, mammals just happened to be having their every-two-days meal of leaves and were active! Look below to see the sloth moving\smiling

Did you know that male sloths usually live up to 25 years but 15 of them is sleeping! As they sleep 90 percent of the day moss and fungi start slowly to grow on the fur of the fast-asleep animals. Also sloths go to the bathroom only once every week and when the decide to do it they have to make a dangerous decent from the treetops. Why? Well we don’t exactly know why they don’t just poop from the trees but maybe it is because they bury their poop, some of the algae and micro-organisms that live in their fur, transfers to the ground and helps to break down their waste, which in turn helps to fertilise the tree.

My sloth factfile:

1. Sloths sleep up to 20 hours per day and sometimes green algae grows on their fur and causes them to stay camouflaged!
2. There are two types of sloth in Costa Rica two-toed and three-toed the Latin names for them are very complicated!
3. Sloths are incredible swimmers and there signature move is doggie paddle.
4. Ancient ground Sloths were some of the largest land mammals to walk the planet or should say crawl the planet!
5. Sloth poop is a mystery. Thanks to their slow metabolism, they only poop once a week and to do so they have to make a dangerous decent from the trees to the ground where they are vulnerable to predators.
6. Sloths hang from trees effortlessly, their claws function like hooks and do not require any strength to remain suspended on the branches.