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Three-toed Sloth
Fast Facts
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4 species
Mammal
Completely arboreal
Use long claws to hang from trees
Size of a small dog
Weigh 7-10 lbs.
Algae grows in fur
Go to the ground to urinate and
defecate about once a week,
digging a hole and covering it
afterwards
Cannot maintain their body temperature, so
they must live in warm, humid climates
Feeding
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Sleep 15-20 hrs per day
Forage on plants at night
Eat leaves, shoots, and fruit from the trees
Get most all of their water from juicy plants
Reproduction
• Mate and give birth while
hanging in the trees
• Females give birth to a
single young after a
gestation period of
around 6 months
• Babies are often seen clinging to their mothers
• They travel by hanging on to them for the first
nine months of their lives
Fun Facts
• Travel at a top speed of
0.15 mph
• Are surprisingly good
swimmers
• Sometimes fall directly
from rain forest trees into
rivers
• Have extra neck vertebrae
that allows them to turn
their heads 270 degrees
Conservation
• Maned Three-toed sloth
is listed as Endangered
• Threatened by loss of
habitat from destruction
of the rainforest
• Majority of sloth deaths
in Costa Rica are due to
contact with electrical
lines and poachers