Better Living Through Zoology: The Two-Toed Sloth

In the South American exhibit at Cameron Park Zoo lives a two-toed sloth named Cheetah.

The two-toed sloth is awesome animal. It has two toes on its front legs, and it is not in any particular hurry. Hence the name. It spends nearly its entire existence in trees, hanging upside-down. They mate, give birth, and nurse hanging upside down.

It isn’t because the sloth is particularly relaxed that it is slothful – it is because it has a very……..slow……..metabolism. As a result, it can’t shiver (the only mammal that can’t), and so is highly vulnerable in cold temperatures. It also takes it several weeks to digest the things that it eats.

I said it spends most of its time in trees – one of the the things it comes down out of the trees to do is defecate. Fortunately, thanks to the very…….slow……metabolism, it only has to do this once every week or so.

There’s a moral there somewhere – I’m just not sure what it is.