Brown-throated sloth

The brown-throated sloth is a slow, gentle animal that lives high up in the rainforest trees of Central and South America. It has long arms, curved claws, and a round face that always looks a little bit sleepy. It is one of the three-toed sloths, which means it has three curved claws on each hand.

Sloths are famous for taking life very, very slowly. They spend most of the day hanging upside down among the branches, munching young leaves, flowers, and fruit. Moving slowly helps them save energy, because leaves are not a very filling meal. A sloth can spend a long time in just one favourite tree.

Sloths are such gentle, slow movers that tiny green plants called algae can grow right in their shaggy fur. This gives them a greenish tint that blends in with the leaves, so they are tricky for other animals to spot high in the canopy. Little moths even like to live in a sloth’s cosy coat.

A mother sloth usually has one baby at a time. The newborn is born up in the trees with its fur and claws already grown, and it clings to its mother’s tummy for protection. It rides along with her for the first months of its life, learning which leaves are good to eat before it heads off on its own.

Sloths climb down from their trees only about once a week, to go to the toilet on the forest floor. It is one of the few times they leave the safety of the canopy, and then they slowly climb right back up again.

Brown-throated sloths are still quite common across the rainforest, so they are not in danger overall. The biggest thing that helps them is looking after the tall forests where they live, because a sloth needs plenty of leafy trees to call home.