Sloth

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Rock 'nd Sloth

Sloth is the common name for species of mammals belonging to the Megalonychidae family and the Bradypodidea family. These species are most common in the rain-forests of South America, and are actually one of the most successful (note: by successful we mean they survive relatively long and are relatively plenty in number compared to other species living there) species living in these rain-forests.

There used to be many other species of sloth, next to the six species which still live today. The species of sloth that went extinct, like the Megatherium, often lived on the ground and were often much larger, more active, and far more dangerous than the arboreal sloths that we still find in the rainforests. The megatherium for example, was around the size of an elephant, weighted about five tons and both very strong and very fast, quite unlike present day sloths. All of these ground sloths however died out, likely due to a combination of early human activity in sout america and the big climate change that appeared just after the end of the last Ice Age.

Present day sloth's however, are very successful, and as said before, even one of the most successful mammals living in the rainforest. They thank this success to the unique survival strategy they follow, which is to save energy:

First of all, sloths save energy by hanging upside down most of the time.
Thanks to the design of their nails, this hardly costs them any energy and saves a lot of energy compared to having to sit up on the branches of a tree. Many sloth remain hanging upside down while eating, sleeping and even while giving birth. Many sloths even remain hanging upside down after they died.
Secondly, sloths eat leaves, in general the leaves growing from the tree they live in. Since leaves are very hard to digest, it usually takes about a month for a leaf to be fully digested. Because of this, sloths get very little nutrition, and have to save on their metabolism. This means they've got only little muscle tissue (which is a good thing, since leaves don't run away anyway) and have a very low body temperature, namely 30 degrees Celsius or even lower.
Thirdly, sloths never run for enemies, because they don't have too. Sloths live high up in tree where there are hardly enemy natural enemies. Further more, they are very well camouflaged, the fur of Sloth actually gives shelter to many kinds of bacteria small plants and Fungi, which actually change their fur into a piece of rainforest.

Even though they are very successful, sloths have fallen victim to bad PR and several prejudices.

The first prejudice is that sloths sleep a lot, if not most of the time.
This however, is not true. Wild Sloths spend only around 10 hours a day sleeping, which is actually half an hour less than the average Vurdalak Band Member. The rest of the day is used stripping the tree in which they live from its leaves, using months to digest these leaves, and getting stuck in, and electrocuted by electrical lines.

The second, and most well known, prejudice is that sloths are extremely slow. This however, is only relative. On land, sloths move by lying on their belly and using their legs and arms to push their bodies forward. They have to do this because sloth bodies consist of one-fourth of the average for muscle tissue found in most other species of mammals, and the muscles in their legs are not strong enough to support the weight of their bodies. Even so, sloths move at a maximum speed of 1.9 kilometers per hour or 0.54 meters per second which is roughly 180 times slower than a human being, but 5 times faster than a snail.

From these two follows other humbug like "Sloth are Stupid" (which is not true) and "sloth are not rock n roll" (which is most definitely and absolutely not true)