Sloth
Sloths are very interesting and funny creatures. Imagine, they spend most of their time just hanging from trees! But despite their name, they are not lazy, they just like to do things slowly and quietly.
Where sloths live
Sloths live in the remote and beautiful jungles of South and Central America. They love quiet and green forests with lots and lots of trees. Sloths are nestled in the trees where it is cool and shady and can climb up to 1200 metres! That's the height of a small mountain. Imagine sitting at the top of a huge tree and looking out at the world around you. What a wonderful and breathtaking sight!
What kind of animal is a sloth
Sloths are amazing creatures! They can be quite large, they can be anywhere from 42cm to 80cm long, which is about the length of a large toy. They have a short tail of only 2.5 to 9 cm and three toes on each paw, at the ends of which are sharp claws.
What a sloth eats
Sloths are very fond of sleeping! They can sleep 15 to 18 hours a day, and when they are awake, they tend to eat. Sloths love the young leaves of different trees. They also eat berries if they find them in a tree. They spend most of their time in trees, but sometimes they can move around on the ground.
The most amazing thing is that a sloth stays in one tree until it runs out of food. Imagine how convenient that is - no need to run around looking for food, it's right there in your tree!
Did you know that sloths are great swimmers? Despite being so slow in trees, they can swim quickly and easily. So if a sloth needs to swim across a river or pond, it will simply climb down from the tree, swim across the body of water, and calmly climb up another tree.
How baby sloths are born
Sloths don't have permanent pairs, they usually find a new partner for each baby. A mum sloth is pregnant for about 7 months, and when the baby is born, it already has claws and soft fur! A newborn sloth hangs onto its mum for the first five months of its life, although mum only feeds it milk for 4-5 weeks. After 5 days, the baby begins to taste the solid food it gets from mum's mouth. In this way, the cub gets used to certain types of trees and leaves that its mum prefers. In nature, sloths live a long time, up to 30-40 years. And all this time they like to hang on their favourite trees, eat tasty leaves and sleep a lot.
