hey guys sorry about that we a little technical difficulties I'm Tammy in case
you missed it I'm Melanie and we're here at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical
Garden today and we're gonna talk to you about our friend Moe and actually we have
Lightning back there - we have two two-toed sloths so Moe is here on his
jungle gym kind of hanging out a little bit active not too much active but we
will talk about him Melanie's gonna work behind us and try to get Lightning up
and awake - she's been kind of sleepy today we've kind of got a rainy dreary day
going on but yeah let's tell you about Moe all right so I'm gonna give him a little bit
of food while he is out got some watermelon for him buddy that good there
you go so I am feeding Moe a variety of
foods you might see some different fruits that I'm offering him but that is
not what he would be eating in the wild out in the wild he's gonna be eating a
lot of what we call browse that's just your plant matter it's
everything that's on a tree it's your leaf your branch your bark
everything like that even the berries and the flowers that he might be eating
so it's kind of fun we do have a challenge for you guys we do have an
activity that I'm gonna tell you about a little bit later and that has to do with
what they do eat out in the wild all right so while Moe's hanging out here
you can see that cute little tongue of him it's really funny this is this is
not a sloth thing this is a Moe thing he just liked to hang out its tongue Oh
liz has a question she's asking me how heavy can make it well it's really funny
Moe here he's a 21 20 year old mo no oh my goodness I'm sorry guys he's a 20
year old male and he waits roughly 17 to 18 pounds our female up there Lightning
she is actually seven years old and she weighs 25 pounds that is not your
average sloth they're usually gonna run into 17 to 20
pound range our lady up there she's just a little big girl all right so while
Moe's hanging out of here you guys might be able to see his eyes he's got those
open for you these guys have really bad eyesight so we've got these teeny tiny
pupils they don't let a lot of light in and they don't really dilate do you know
why that is they're nocturnal so they don't really need to see a lot it's dark
where they live they live way up in the rainforest canopy they live up there all
year round it's pretty dark way up in the trees and since they are mainly
nocturnal there or only awake at night they don't really need to see very much
I don't know if you can show his toes up here I really want to tell you guys why
he's called a two toed sloth it's really confusing cuz it's actually his fingers
could you guys see that he's got one two on his front hand but now if you look
way back here at his feet he actually has three so we're really looking at
their fingers a two toed sloth has two fingers and a three-toed sloth has three
fingers but all spots have three toes I know it's a little confusing how you
doing over there Moe do you want another treat
let's try giving them a blackberry do you guys like your fruit cuz Moe really
likes it's great job bud he might just hold on to that for a few minutes and
that's okay now if you're looking at his face can
you see his nose and see how big that noses that's what he uses as his main
sense he smells really really well but he doesn't see very well like we said so
he's gonna use that nose to be able to find anything and everything he's gonna
find fruit he might find a mate he might find another hiding spot but yeah he
does use that big nose to be able to smell around you're gonna get sleep with
that in your mouth is that good all right Anna is also
asking us a question why did I hang up now that is a really great question
since lots were built to live in a tree and hang upside down their entire life
so everything about them is flipped from ours
they don't have their organs in the same position or in the same shape as ours
everything is kind of inverted so they're going to live their lives upside
down so that they can hang in trees and they can kind of represent a different
part of the rainforest than other animals it's kind of ironic thinking
about it kids at home if you are hanging upside down you're on a jungle gym right
and you're hanging upside down what happens do you get kind of dizzy you get
kind of lightheaded you might get a little nauseous well that's what's gonna
happen here with the Moe if he is right side up so everything about him is
flipped from us so these guys were designed to live like this
16 plus hours at one time that he can hang without moving it's kind of crazy
all right Tara is asking are there different kinds
of sloths there are there's about five or so different species there's a couple
different of two-toed sloths so he is what we call a Linnaeus's sloth and there's
also a Hoffman’s two toed sloth but there's a few different three-toed
sloths as well one of the favorites being the Pygmy sloth so those guys are
really small three toed pygmy slots they live in the mangroves they'll drop into
the mangroves themselves and they can actually swim did you guys know sloths
are really good swimmers it's kind of insane so while we're talking about the
different different kinds of sloths if you have seen anything with a sloth on
it you've seen that raccoon face that has like the smile especially if you've
seen Zootopia that is a three-toed sloth so next time you see one look to see
with your fingers how many they have now Moe does not have that raccoon look face
because he's a two toed sloth so they do look a lot different in the face they
have a big nose but the three-toed sloths are gonna have a very very flat
face how's it going Melanie still sleepy that's right so this is what sloths are
typically doing during the day they sleep roughly sixteen to eighteen hours
in a day plus like I said it is actually raining here in Cincinnati and we are in
a live rain forest so it is raining on us as well so this is what she likes to
do whenever it's raining or when she's wet
she likes hunker down still hanging out Moe do we have another question we do
Mason wants to know why they have so much fur if they live in the rain forest
and what their fur feels like that's a great question so in the wild this is
not what Moe would look like he would actually be green the reason they have
so much fur is because they're gonna try to keep your body nice and warm so again
in the rain forest it is raining all the time so they're gonna be wet all the
time and because they're wet all the time and because they move so slowly
they are gonna have algae growing all over their bodies so they're gonna be a
green almost of black in color so Moe is very very clean because here he does get
to move around a little bit more and it doesn't rain on him constantly so he's
not gonna have that algae growing on him plus inside that fur there's gonna
be a whole ecosystem that lives in there but here we don't have the bugs that
would typically live in his fur to help keep his skin nice and clean but it's
very pretty soft there are fit there kind of course like if you have a dog
has coarse hair but most of its pretty soft and it's very thick but it's kind
of nice because it's got a built-in defense system where whenever it rains
on his belly it's gonna roll right off so that he himself is not giving went
all the way down to the skin all right you're doing great Moe
all right Lily wants to know what their favorite food is well they really really
like a lot of different fruits like that you've seen I might have been feeding
Moe some watermelon and some blueberries he really likes plum and strawberries
also but one of the other favorite foods is corn on the cob so let's see which
one Moe likes right now you want some corn on the cob buddy
how about a strawberry this is a nice big strawberry huh okay
he's going for the strawberry this is a rest of his diet plate while he tries to
eat that it's kind of interesting looking they get a lot of greens he's so
funny he's just gonna hold on to it but we do
give them a variety through they get a lot of different fruits and vegetables
they also get a lot of greens we also will give them hard-boiled egg just to
make sure that they're getting the protein that they need that they're
missing from all the wild browse that they would be eating he's so funny he
likes to sleep I don't know why so much while he's eating okay Freddy wants to
know if sloths have predators oh my gosh Freddy that is a great question they do
have predators they have two really big predators their main predator that
everybody thinks about is a Jaguar so they have to be really really sneaky and
they have to be able to hide really well from all these Jaguars so one of
the things that they do is that they make sure that they go to the bathroom
only once a week and they do that by coming down to the base of the tree they
poop and they pee all at once and then they climb back up to the tree
by doing this they're not giving away their location of where they're hiding
from their Jaguars now the other predator that most people
don't realize that they have is a harpy eagle so harpy eagles can are big enough
that they can swoop down and they can take an adult sloth out of the tree they
may go after juveniles because they're a little bit smaller but they can carry a
full adult sloth so those are the two biggest predators
the Jaguars and the harpy eagle all right I can't thank you for watching so
what do they smell like you know not very well they smell kind of stinky umm
they are I don't know what do you think smell like poop a lot so there
I'm very clean animals they have bad breath so I will tell you that much
especially when they've been eating a lot and they eat a lot of hard-boiled
eggs so yeah it smells like that egg sometime so and they also smell a lot
like wet dogs right now because it is raining so when their fur gets wet they
do smell like a wet dog are they endangered at this time they are not
considered to be in danger surprisingly enough but as their habitat gets
destroyed their members keep going down more and more but at this time they are
not considered to be endangered the pygmy three toes are considered to
be threatened though it's a good question all right Jen wants to know how
long do they live so in our environment I told you Moe is 20 he should be able
to live up to closer to 40 so he's only what we consider middle-aged right now
in the wild they would live to be into their late teens or early 20s but in a
zoo setting obviously he has free health care yets free food delivered to him
every day he also has free room and board so he should live to be a lot
longer but older how's it going Moe are you still enjoying that strawberry so
this is definitely by far one of his favorite foods all right Willow wants to know
who's his favorite caretakers it's me (laugh) it's really interesting so since Moe has
such really bad eye-sight he knows each one of us based on our smells not by the
way we look so he can look at me and Melanie and be like I don't know who's
who but I know what she smells like and I
know what she smells like and every day is a different day so one day he might
like you might like Melanie most days he
likes all of us though there are about six of us that do get to take care of
him and we were very excited about that so what's next Brea do you cut their
nails we actually will cut their nails we let them stay really long because
that's what he uses to move around on the tree branches you need to be able to
hold on pretty firmly we don't want him to fall off of his tree but whenever
they do get a little bit too long or too sharp we will actually cut them how's
it going oh and he's done just like that guys he's done are you done with the
strawberry there you go yeah do you guys want to see what their diet looks like
oh he sees all these leaves he's like what's going on all right so here's
their diet right now so I got some corn on the cob we do have a bunch of
different fruits and vegetables now this brown stuff that you see on here it is
just a vitamin it's because of what he would be eating in the wild with all of
his browse matter is gonna have a whole different nutritional value so we have
to kind of um makeup it out so and then again we said we give you a hard boiled
egg that's what this is right here just something he has some protein where you
going Moe there he goes he's just doing circles for you guys somedays he'll just
hang out here and not move at all this is just lovely and are sloths related to
monkeys or koalas they are not so surprisingly enough these guys are
closely related to armadillos what else Melanie what are
they related to anteaters yeah what about fun facts I like to talk about is
that sloths are obviously from a spanish-speaking area so they're from
Central and South America and so sloths are called panas Usos which is also an
adjective for being lazy or sluggish oh
we have a question Roman says do they make noises oh my gosh so I did not know
this sloths made noises for the longest time I never heard Moe do anything other
than make a hiss or a growl if he was really mad but now that we have our
lovely lady Lightening up there we have heard so many noises coming out of both
of them they make a lot of noises where they talk to each other they do a lot of
kissing at each other they do some hissing at each other they do a lot of
growling but they also bark and to me that was crazy to actually hear them
bark the other thing that I've heard is that in the wild when the female sloth
is ready to find a boyfriend she's gonna scream until her boyfriend finds her
alright so Britney wants to know what kind of teeth do they have actually they
have what's called false canines so you may see the little bumps protruding
right at the bottom of his chin there let's see if I can get him to open up
for us can you open see the tree with the blackberry Oh sounds like oh I want
more strawberry guys they're called false canines because they look like
canines but they are not related to canids or dogs and they don't have any
front teeth which are called incisors but they do have some really sharp
molars in the back to be able to crush up the leaves and get the juices and
hydration from the leaves and I also think that's why Moe's tongue sticks out
because he doesn't have any front teeth so we have a question are you
babies that is the hope so we were approved by the species survival plan or the SSP to get Lightning
over here so that's why we have our female lightning now is that hopefully
Lightning and Moe will like each other enough that we're gonna have babies we
are actually training Lightning to come down for us to do ultrasounds on a
periodic basis so one day we're hoping that we'll have a surprise in the
ultrasound and we'll be able to see that we'll have a baby but until that happens
we're gonna let them hang out together and continue to hopefully have a bond
where we will have babies in the future you're so active alright so the activity
guys that we would like you to participate in is to collect some leaves
which is going to be representative of what they eat in the wild so sloths eat
a lot of leaves you guys are gonna go click some leaves and make some art
whether you're going to make us a sloth out of leaves or a rain forest or even a
sloth in the rain forest and you guys can submit the the artwork to the
Cincinnati Zoo's website or Facebook the directions will be in the caption there
but we want to see your artwork we saw some really great artwork on Rico the
porcupine and that was so cool and Rico really enjoyed seeing it as well but you
guys can even put like a heavy book on top of your leaves and make some pressed
leaf art too I'm super excited because this challenge is called Leaf It To Moe
and you guys can check out your Home Safari every day 7 days a week at 3
o'clock exactly so be sure to tune in and we will have so many more animals to
go on a safari with you