There is a Lot More To Learn About Sloths Than You Might Think

Learn some wild facts about sloths, the world's slowest mammal.

Transcript

00:00Do you like to hang around with your friends?

00:03So does Zena, our sloth animal ambassador here at the San Diego Zoo.

00:10She's still a youngster, only a year and a half old.

00:13But she's 10 pounds and she's actually not going to get any bigger.

00:19There are two types of sloths, two-toed and three-toed.

00:23Zena has two toes on her front feet.

00:26What type of sloth do you think she is?

00:30That's right, she's a two-toed sloth.

00:33For sloths, their favorite place to be is up high in the trees.

00:36They use their long claws to hang on to those branches.

00:39In fact, they even sleep there.

00:41They sleep for about 18 to 20 hours a day, which is over twice as long as you sleep.

00:46They only come down from those trees to poop, which only happens one time a week.

00:51Sloths are some of the slowest mammals in the world.

00:54In fact, they're so slow that algae will even grow on their backs

00:58in the rainforests of Central and South America, which is where they come from.

01:02The greenish algae color will help sloths to blend into the trees.

01:06This is called camouflage.

01:08Camouflage will help animals to hide from their predators.

01:11Here at the zoo, Zena doesn't have too many predators to worry about,

01:14so she doesn't have any of that algae.

01:19Sloths move through the trees using their long claws.

01:21They can even use these claws to climb up, down, and even sideways.

01:28When it's time to eat, sloths in the wild will look for shoots, leaves, and fruits up in the trees.

01:34In fact, they get most of the water that they need just from these types of foods.

01:38Here, some of Zena's favorite foods are grapes, yams, and apples.

01:42Sloths see things a little bit differently.

01:48They look at things upside down.

01:50Even their hair grows upside down.

01:53Their part, which is typically on the top of an animal's head, is actually straight down their bellies.

01:57But this helps them in the rainforest, since it rains a whole lot,

02:01all that water just sheds right off their fur.

02:05Zena may move slowly, but she's very quickly become one of the favorite animal ambassadors here at the zoo.

02:10If you ever have a chance to visit, you may just see Zena hanging out with one of her keepers.