What if you could spend all day, every day, at the playground,
swinging on balls and hanging by your legs?
What if you spent your whole life upside down and only
moved about 40 yards a day, very, very slowly?
Well, you, my friend, might be a sloth--
today on Weird in the Wild.
[music playing]
[jungle birds, insects calling]
[whoosh]
To find our slow-motion friend, let's travel
to the lush tropical rainforests of Central and South America.
Here in the jungle is the home and playground
of the friendly sloth.
Life in the trees.
Up high in the canopy of trees, sloths can sleep 15 hours a day
and feel safe from predators like eagles and jaguars.
To say sloths like trees would be a serious understatement.
These famously laid-back mammals spend their entire lives
up here lounging, napping, and grazing.
They live a solitary life and travel
by moving along canopy vines, gripping
and hanging with their 4-inch claws.
By the way, the rainy environment
adds a layer of green algae on the sloth's fur,
which sloths can use to snack on or for extra camouflage.
Ancient ancestors.
Sloths are descendants of the Megatherium,
an extinct giant ground sloth that
was as large as an elephant.
Can you imagine going toe to toe with a 20-foot mega sloth?
Crikey.
(WARPED VOICE) Slow stomachs.
So why is a sloth so slow?
No, it's not lazy.
And yes, it does have places to be, like that tasty branch
over there.
But their low-nutritional diet consists mostly
of twigs, leaves, and flowers.
And that doesn't afford them too much energy.
They also process food very slowly,
causing them to be very thoughtful in their movements.
By the way, it can take over a month
for their large, four-chambered stomachs to digest one meal.
And you thought you felt full after dinner.
Neck on a swivel.
On top of extra stomachs, sloths have more vertebrae
in their necks than most mammals do.
These 10 vertebrae allow them to swivel their head 270
degrees in any direction so they can spot predators and mites.
Well, would you look at that?
A leisurely swim.
[yawns]
Well, for being so slow in their daily life,
sloths are surprisingly quick swimmers.
A sloth will drop out of their tree and splash in the water,
swimming three times faster than they move in the trees.
Their long arms help glide them through the water,
and their extra vertebrae allow them to keep
their nose high and dry.
If a sloth ever wants to find a new home,
they wait until a storm floods the forest floor,
dive in, and take a nice, leisurely swim
to check out the next tree.
Falling head over heels.
[music playing]
Now, when a female sloth is ready to settle down,
she'll let loose with a high-pitched squeal
that can only be described as a lover's howl.
[howls]
If two interested males arrive at the same time,
they will fight for the hand of their love.
In what must be the slowest battle of all time,
they hang from their rear legs, trying
to knock each other out of the tree.
Ha ha!
Talk about falling in love.
Ah, but don't worry.
Sloths were made to drop safely from heights.
By the way, male sloths don't stick around for long.
Female sloths raise their baby completely on their own
for about two years.
One more fun fact about sloths is
that the only time they come down from their tree
is to poop.
They always do their business in the same spot below their home
tree.
Some think it's to fertilize and keep their tree healthy.
Or maybe it's just the closest spot they could find.
Hey, give this guy some privacy!
So the next time you're in the rainforest,
keep your head on a swivel.
Why, that branch moving gently in the wind
may, in fact, be your friendly neighborhood sloth.
[yawns]
I think I need a nap.
Ha ha!
Bye, for now.