[laughs] Can sloths fart?
erm Actually, no,
I can honestly say I've never had that question before, who's asking these questions?
So I'm here to answer some questions about the
weirdest searches to do with sloths.
Can sloths kill you, Erm, Yes!
I mean, they could.
I can't imagine a sloth ever having a reason to want to.
But technically, they are classed as a dangerous animal.
We have to be very careful when we're working with the Sloths here at Chester
Zoo, so we do have to be aware of the fact that they are dangerous.
They have surprisingly big teeth, you wouldn't expect for an animal that mostly
eats leaves.
They actually have very big teeth and it's not for eating.
It's for kind of defense reasons.
But they are big and they are dangerous and they have very long reach.
So you think that you're miles away from them,
but they could still reach out and grab you if they wanted to and pull you closer to them
but I mean, they're lovely natured animals in general, unless - any animal really, I suppose,
but unless they had a reason to want to harm you, I can't imagine a sloth wanting to kill anyone, really.
I mean, I worry for the person who searched for this.
Can sloths fart? Erm, Actually, no, sloths can't fart.
Well, they do something I would say is probably more disgusting than farting,
so they don't fart in the way that we do.
But they do obviously have gas.
Every animal pretty much has gas.
So if they have gas,
what happens is that actually gets reabsorbed into their bloodstream and they
expel it out of their mouth instead.
So they have like a mouth fart, which is worse.
It's definitely worse.
Can sloths swim?
Ok, Can sloths swim is actually a question we get asked a lot.
They actually have a really long reach
their arm span is ginormous and they're actually very good swimmers,
So in the wild, they'll literally fall from low hanging branches and trees.
and just plop into the water.
So, yeah, they're pretty good swimmers.
Can sloths move fast?
Ok, yeah. Good question.
Sloths are renowned for being slow,
But they can actually move at pace if they want to.
Our sloth, Rico, he does not like the hose
so if you turn the hose on while you're in the enclosure, he will, he'll move faster than you think he's going to.
So, yeah, if they want to, they definitely can move quicker than you think.
Can sloths walk?
No. So basically, their body is just not set up for that,
they are designed to hang upside down.
They obviously do come to the ground
if they need to make a fecal deposit, So they come to the ground to poo so they
can move around on the ground,
but a sloth moving around on the ground is possibly one of the creepiest things
that you will ever see in your life.
Yeah, it's it's more of like a crawl in a really strange way,
like something out of a horror film, really.
But no, they can't walk upright.
Why do sloths exist?
Well, I mean, why do any of us exist?
Sloths exist because they are ridiculously cool and the world would be rubbish without them.
Why do sloth's have such long claws, so um, I, to be fair,
would probably call them nails rather than claws because they don't use them
in the same way as most animals with claws would would use them
but actually they end up being kind of an extension of their foot.
On average, probably around 10 centimeters.
They're not sharp at the end,
so they're quite blunt.
So if they were swiping at something, what they would be doing
is swiping at it to pull it closer to their mouth so they could bite it.
So they wouldn't really be causing any damage by swiping just with their like
claws. So their claws are mostly for movement purposes, really, getting
around. My favourite thing about sloths, and obviously I'm very lucky because I get to work with them every day.
is the fact that they are so slow.
People don't quite realize how slow.
Sloths are obviously renowned for being slow.
But when your life and your work
kind of revolves around them, the slowness,
it feels soul destroying.
But in the loveliest way.
I think people are obviously really interested in sloths, and that is great because they're amazing.
I think maybe people need to google less about like
farts and death
and maybe more about happy things.
Because there are loads of interesting things about sloths
other than farting, pooing and dying.