Animal’s world is so diverse that no matter how we study it, we always learn something new. As you know, man’s best friend is a dog. I would not be limited to just four-legged, but I took all animals to the best friends of mankind. After all, any representative of the animal world in an amazing way by its presence brightens up and pleases our life. In the tropics of South America, animals are found, whose entire life runs upside down, literally.
They hang from the trees, clinging to the branches with their sickle-like claws. In this position, animals sleep and eat, produce offspring and die. All movements as in a slow-motion picture: slowly turn their necks and look around, slowly climbing from branch to branch, slowly chewing food.
For the unhurried way of life, people call them sloths. The uniqueness of these mammals is surprising. Sloths have two kinds of distant relatives – water and land sloths, which grew more than elephants. One meal at sloths can be fully digested for up to a month. Because of their long claws, these animals can’t walk properly on the ground.
Therefore, most of the time they spend on trees and are classified as wood animals. Although sloths and sluggish and can’t escape from predators, their long claws provide effective protection against intruders. Regardless of the fact that they are slow and sluggish – sloths sleep only 10 hours a day.
The fur of these animals can be regarded as a small ecosystem that provides habitat for several small parasitic insects. Also on the fur grow two types of algae, which form a symbiotic relationship with the animal. The latter provides a safe habitat for algae, while algae provide camouflage to the animal among trees against potential predators.
Since their diet consists mainly of plant substances – including leaves and kidneys – these animals are classified as a suborder detachment of incomplete teeth. The long claws of the animal are almost four inches long and help them to stick to the trees. The capture of an animal with a tree is preserved even after the sloth dies. Regardless of whether they are two-toed or three-toed, members of all kinds of sloths have three fingers.
The most dangerous predators for sloths are snakes, jaguars, and eagles. Nevertheless, he blends well with trees, which makes hungry predators very difficult to find a sloth. Also, an interesting fact is that due to his slow behavior sloths are very quiet, and from that, they live from 25 to 40 years.
And also these animals perfectly swim and are not afraid of water. They do it a little awkwardly, but they are quite capable of speeding up to 4 km per hour. The fact that sloths are not afraid of water proves the video below. See how carefully he is washed and how he reacts to such procedures. This cutie will cheer you up. Check it out!
