Hump day: Wacky and weird facts about sloths

It’s Wednesday and that means hump day. Do you need that extra push to get over the hump? Don’t feel like a sloth today, instead, read these weird facts on the mystical creatures supplied by TheFW:

1. Sloths don’t just ‘sloth around’ 

These animals have a reputation for lying around and doing nothing for most of their existence. However, study abolished that long held belief. The Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany studied the brain wave patterns of three-toed sloths in the Panamanian rainforest instead of those in captivity, by fixing a brainwave cap to each of the animals. The data showed that the wild sloths only slept just over 9 1/2 hours a day and not the 15 to 20 hours on average that science recorded from those captivated.

2. They’re always gripping something, even after death

Spending most of their time in trees, sloths’ muscles and limbs have adapted to climb trunks to find food and escape predators. They spend so much time in the trees that the tree holds their very life in the balance, sometimes even after they’ve died, according to National Geographic. Thanks to their claws and muscles, the grip of a sloth is so strong that sometimes when they die, they are found still clinging to the very branch they were lounging from when they were alive.

3. There were once ‘mega-sloths’

While these creatures may not look menacing or dangerous, their larger ancestors getting a hold of you could make you wish for a quick death. Only some 10,000 years ago the giant Megatherium aka ‘the giant sloth’ inhabited the planet. They lived in what is now South America and have been described as the same size as the modern rhinoceros, before their extinction. They were mainly herbivores, but some paleontologists suggest they could have been ‘opportunistic carnivores’ if they needed to defend themselves from predators or other mega-sloths.

4. Sloths only go to the bathroom once a week

Part of the reason why so many people consider sloths to be slothful is their diet. They have a very low metabolism and have to eat a lot to get the nutrients their body needs. Since it takes so long for a sloth to digest the food it eats, it only urinates or defecates about once a week, usually during the few times it leaves the tree.

https://giphy.com/gifs/sloth-eating-SqwWYCqb6dqPC

5. Some thought a dead Panamanian sloth was an alien

A group of teenagers in the Cerro Azul region of Panama City got the scare of their life when they saw a dead, unidentified, pale being lying on a rock and snapped a couple of photos of its body. They posted it on the internet where it went viral and became ‘Panama ET’, sparking a ton of theories that it might have been some kind of alien. A biopsy, however, revealed it to be a three-toed sloth that had died in the river, causing its hair to fall out and make its skin look translucent.

Read TheFW’s original article with the full facts here 

Watch: Baby sloths getting a bath

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