I do find these animals fascinating.  They’re so slow that they have microbiomes living in their fur.  Their metabolism is so slow that they take days to digest food other animals can breakdown in hours.  They stay in the trees and only come down once a week to go the bathroom.

Sloths are pretty cool when you look beyond them simply being slow.

Sloths fall into two categories, which are two-toed sloths (2 species) and three-toed sloths (4 species).  The pygmy three-toed sloth is considered critically endangered and the maned sloth is considered vulnerable.  There biggest threats are:

• Deforestation, which destroys their environment.  Sloths live in thick canopies where they can hide from predators.  On the ground, they’re too slow to escape snakes and jaguars.  If they are on branches, but are exposed than large birds of prey can snag them.
• Poaching because . . . humans suck.

For more…