What Type Of Sloth Is Your Spirit Sloth

Your Spirit Sloth is a solitary, nocturnal and arboreal animal, found in rainforests. The two-toed sloth falls prey to wild cats such as the ocelot and jaguar as well as large birds of prey such as the harpy and crested eagles. Predation mainly occurs when the sloth descends to the ground in order to defecate or change trees. Anacondas have also been known to hunt them. It is able to swim, making it possible to cross rivers and creeks, but maybe also making it more available to a predator like an anaconda.

They live in ever-wet tropical rainforests that are hot and humid. They tend to live in areas where there is a lot of vine growth so they can easily travel from tree to tree in the canopies of the forests. They mainly eat leaves, but there is lacking data on the extent of their diet due to their nocturnal lifestyle and camouflage.

Two-toed sloths spend most of their time in trees, though they may travel on the ground to move to a new tree. A study of sloths on Barro Colorado Island indicated that the Hoffmann's two-toed sloths there were almost exclusively nocturnal, even though in other locations they are known to be active during day. The authors attributed this in part to competition with the brown-throated sloth. They often move slowly through the canopy for about eight hours each night, and spend much of the day sleeping in tangles of lianas. They move only very slowly, typically at around 0.14 m/s (0.46 ft/s), although they can move up to 50% faster when excited. They are solitary in the wild, and, aside from mothers with young, it is unusual for two to be found in a tree at the same time.

The name "sloth" means "lazy", but the slow movements of this animal are actually an adaptation for surviving on a low-energy diet of leaves. These sloths have half the metabolic rate of a typical mammal of the same size. Sloths have very poor eyesight and hearing, and rely almost entirely on their senses of touch and smell to find food.

This species often exhibits exaggerated wobbling of the head. Another trait of this sloth is it often spits when the mouth opens. The saliva often accumulates on the lower lip, giving the creature a comical appearance.

The pygmy three-toed sloth, like others in its genus, is an arboreal (tree-living) animal. This sloth can spend as many as 15 to 20 hours per day on trees. It moves at an extremely slow speed of 0.24 kilometres per hour (0.15 mph), making it one of the slowest animals. The pygmy three-toed sloth is symbiotically related to green algae; a 2010 study investigated this in detail. Different sloths harbour different types of algae – only Tricophilus species were found on the brown-throated and pygmy three-toed sloths. These algae discolor the fur of the sloth, giving it a greenish hue – this serves as an efficient camouflage. Some of these algae might be transferred to offspring through the mother, others may be picked up from the surroundings over time. The smaller size of pygmy sloths reduces their energy requirements for survival and reproduction, making them an apparent example of insular dwarfism.

Like other sloths, the pygmy three-toed sloth feeds on leaves. It feeds on red mangrove leaves, which are relatively poor in nutrients and coarser than the tender leaves of Cecropia species eaten by brown-throated sloths on the mainland. Details of mating behavior and reproduction have not been documented.

Maned sloths are solitary diurnal animals, spending from 60–80% of their day asleep, with the rest more or less equally divided between feeding and travelling. Sloths sleep in crotches of trees or by dangling from branches by their legs and tucking their head in between their forelegs.

Maned sloths are folivores, and feed exclusively on tree and liana leaves, especially Cecropia. Although individual animals seem to prefer leaves from particular species of tree, the species as a whole is able to adapt to a wide range of tree types. Younger leaves are preferred to older, and tree leaves are preferred to liana leaves. Individual maned sloths have reported to travel over a home range of 0.5 to 6 hectares (1.2 to 14.8 acres), with estimated population densities of 0.1 to 1.25 per hectare (0.040 to 0.506/acre).

Maned sloths rarely descend from the trees because, when on a level surface, they are unable to stand and walk, only being able to drag themselves along with their front legs and claws. They travel to the ground only to defecate or to move between trees when they cannot do so through the branches. The sloth's main defenses are to stay still and to lash out with its formidable claws. It can swim well.

Pale-throated sloths are solitary, herbivorous animals that spend almost their entire lives in trees. Depending on habitat, population densities of anything from 1.7 to 221 per square kilometre (4.4 to 572.4/sq mi) have been reported.

They eat only leaves, including those of Cecropia, Ceiba, Elizabetha, and Hevea. Known predators include jaguars, margays, harpy eagles, and anacondas.

The pale-throated sloth can hang so securely with its hooklike claws that it even falls asleep in this position. It may even stay suspended in the trees for some time after it dies. They have been reported to spend over eighteen hours each day asleep, and move through the tree canopy only very slowly. They periodically descend from the trees to defecate, depositing a pile of small pellets in a hole dug into the ground. Despite their arboreal lifestyle, they are effective swimmers. Their call is a bird-like whistle described as an "ai-ai" sound.

In addition to their mutualism with green algae, pale-throated sloths are also commensal with sloth moths, and with certain species of beetle. These insects live in the sloth's fur, and lay their eggs in its dung, on which their larvae feed.

Brown-throated sloths sleep 15 to 18 hours every day and are active for only a few brief periods, which may be during either the day or night. Although they can walk along the ground, and even swim, they spend most of their lives in the high branches of trees, descending once every eight days or so to defecate in the soil. Adult animals are solitary, except when raising young, and males have been observed to fight one another using their fore claws.

Brown-throated sloths inhabit the high canopy of the forest, where they eat young leaves from a wide range of different trees. They do not travel far, with home ranges of only around 0.5 to 9 ha (1.2 to 22.2 acres), depending on the local environment. Within a typical, 5-hectare (12-acre) range, a brown-throated sloth will visit around 40 trees, and may specialise on one particular species, even spending up to 20% of its time in a single specific tree. Thus, although the species are generalists, individual sloths may feed on a relatively narrow range of leaf types.[4]



In addition to the algae in their fur, brown-throated sloths also live commensally with a species of moth, Cryptoses choloepi, which lives in their fur, and lays its eggs in the dung. Jaguars and harpy eagles are among the few natural predators of the brown-throated sloth. The yellow-headed caracara has been observed to forage for small invertebrates in the fur of the sloths, apparently without the sloth being disturbed by the attention.

The female of the species is known to emit a loud, shrill scream during the mating season to attract males. Its cry sounds like "ay ay", much like that of a woman screaming. The male can be identified by a black stripe surrounded by orange fur on its back between the shoulders.