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Home \ Central Park Zoo \
Two-Toed Sloth
Two-Toed Sloth
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Zoo collection includes: Five year old female named Matilda.
Found in the wild: Central and South America from Nicaragua through Columbia and western Venezuela south to northeast Equador.
See her at the Central Park Zoo: In the canopy level of the Tropical Rain Forest.
Description: Matilda weighs about 12 pounds. Keep an eye out for her, she blends in well with the surrounding trees. The face of the two-toed sloth is quite flat and hairless. Its eyes are small, set within black rings, and the ears are almost completely hidden beneath the long, bristly, gray-brown coat. Her tail is little more than a stump. The front legs are slightly longer than the hind legs, and the feet have long curved claws, but only on the second and third toes of the front feet, which is why it is called a two-toed sloth. They have long gray or brown hair that blends in well with the surrounding environment. This hair curves in the opposite direction of most other mammals: from the stomach to the back. Their hair is often covered with a coat of blue-green algae during the rainy season. This algae provides camouflage.
Zoo Sloth Habitat: Matilda has the entire Tropic building to navigate around. She is excellent at hiding. Most people get to see her towards the end of the day when she come out of hiding and slowly moves to her feeding area, over the beach.
What do they eat: Sloths have large, chambered stomachs to help digest plant material. Digestion can take as long as a month. In the wild, two-toed sloths eat leaves, fruit, flowers, and buds. Their low rate of metabolism enables them to live on relatively little food. Sloths appear to be strictly herbivores, feeding on leaves, young shoots, flowers and fruit. They don't drink but get their water from eating juicy leaves & licking dewdrops. In the CPZ, she is fed a variety of greens (spinach is favored), carrots, yams, apple pieces, and some canned primate diet.
Life span: Sloths in captivity can live over 30 years. The life span in the wild is closer to 12 to 16 years.
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Threats: Deforestation. In some parts of South America, two-toed sloths are hunted for their meat. Predators, beside people, include large snakes, harpy eagles and other large birds. Jaguars and ocelots are a danger when the sloth is on the ground.
Fun Facts: Two-toed sloths, such as the CPZ’s Matilda, are nocturnal. Sloths have the most variable and lowest body temperature of any mammal. Due to her species’ low metabolism and low body temperature, she needs about 15 hours of sleep a day. She is likely to stay in the trees most of the time, coming down about once a week to release feces and urine. This fecal material, which may weigh as much as 2 pounds, is high in nutrients and helps to fertilize the surrounding plants. They spend so much time upside down that they are the only mammals whose fur is parted and flows from belly to back. This allows run-off of water during rainstorms. Sloths are also the only mammals that can turn their heads about 180 degrees in both directions, an adaptation shared with only a few other groups of animals – owls and some prosimians. They do not have incisors and crop leaves with their hard lips. Their teeth grow continuously, as they are worn down by the grinding of their food. Sloths have primitive peg-like teeth. They have a total of ten upper and eight lower molars. These teeth lack enamel and grow continuously. They do most things upside down: eat, sleep (an average of 15 hours per day), mate, and give birth. Because of their upside down life, many of their internal organs (liver, stomach, spleen, pancreas) are in different positions from other mammals. Sloths sometimes let out a cry or hissing sound.
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