We are getting wild and
crazy with animals today.
Let's go back to Alyssa Leslie
from the Dallas Zoo's Animal
Adventures outreach team.
So what's the next animal
we're going to learn about?
Yes, so we now have with us.
Lola and Lola is a two toed sloth.
So as we get a little closer view here,
there are two and three toed sloth.
Now we're going to try and show you.
Here is 2 toed sloths have
two toes on their front feet,
but they have three toes on their back feet,
so all sloths have three toes
on those back feet there.
So to tell apart,
a two and a three toed sloth you have to
count the number of toes on their front feet,
and we're seeing Lola doing
here what she does best.
Sloth like to spend their entire lives?
Hanging upside down so they
do everything like this.
They eat upside down.
They drink upside down.
They even give birth upside down.
And when we travel offsite with Lola,
she actually has her crate design so that
she can travel outside down as well.
Now the other thing we know about
sloth is that they are very very slow.
A lot of times we think about
sloths being lazy,
but that's actually not true.
Sluss are herbivores and they spend
their entire lives hanging up in those
trees and they eat all the leaves and fruits.
They're going to find up in the
trees so their food doesn't have
a whole lot of energy.
So as a sloth,
she has to spend a lot of her time conserving
that energy so slots sleep about 11:50.
Even sometimes up to 15 hours
a day conserving that energy.
Now you'll see her right now.
She does have those teeth to
be able to break open her food.
But she spends all of her time
hanging out just like this now.
Well, herself is actually a very clean sloth.
You'll notice she's kind of
a tannish brown color.
However,
in their natural environment
they are a green color,
so they actually moved so slowly
and they live where it's very humid
and rainy that they'll actually
grow green algi in their fur.
Now you'll notice her arms are very
brown and when her fur is green.
That's going to perfectly allow
her to camouflage up in the trees.
Now,
a lot of times people ask us
why sloths are slow and I have
a question for you.
Why are other animals fast?
Let's think about a cheetah.
Cheetah has to be fast to catch its food.
Well,
as I mentioned Lola is an herbivore,
so she eats things up in the trees and
she doesn't have to be fast to catch them.
The other reason animal needs
to be fast is like a gazelle.
The gazelle is running fast
to get away from the cheetah,
so this means little love really does
not have a whole lot of predators
or animals that might try to eat
her that she has to worry about.
In fact,
there's really only two main
predators of a sloth.
One is a large bird called a harpy eagle.
They are huge birds,
and they can actually ****** these
loss out of the trees, however.
Since they camouflage so well
and they move so little a lot of
times it's difficult for those
harpy Eagles to even see them.
Now her other predator is on the ground,
and that's a large cat called a jagwire.
Now, as I mentioned last,
been pretty much their entire lives
up in the tree except about once a
week they climbed down to the base of
their tree and they go to the bathroom.
That's right, just once a week.
So when that happens,
that's when a jagwire might
be waiting for her,
but otherwise,
she really doesn't have a whole
lot of credit or story about.
Now it's lost are not an endangered species.
However,
there are things that we can do to help,
and as you guys are buying your
back to school supplies,
think about buying things that you
can use from recycled materials or Azure.
Going back to school and you're
writing on paper for exams,
go ahead and recycle that and
that will be a big help to
slash that rely on those trees.
I love all of those great information,
Alyssa. I've learned so much.
Jacob my nephew. He's five.
He has one question.
I love that they're both watching.
He's wondering how long do they live?
Great question, Lola.
Here is 12 years old and they can
typically live about 20 to 25 years
much longer with us under human care.
Thank you so much and thank you all to the
Dallas Zoo folks at the Animal Adventures.
We really appreciate your time today.