Why Do Sloths Move So Slow Compared to Other Animals?

TheIndonesia.co - Sloth is widely known as slow, simple, and lazy animal that does little other than sleep. You might be wondering how this slow-moving creature survives in the wild after all. Some of you might also think why does a sloth move so slowly?

The word "sloth" is even translated as "lazy" in most languages, marking how slow this animal is. Here is the reason why this slow creation moving so lagging. 

Why Are Sloths So Slow? 

1. Food and digestion 

The slow movements of sloths are associated with their diet. Sloths eat leaves, which have a low-calorie intake. It is not easy to get digested, so the sloth's tree-lined lifestyle and slow movements seem designed to conserve energy. 

In most mammals, the rate of digestion is proportional to body size, so larger animals take a longer time to digest their food. However, sloths are different. Their stomach has several compartments, loaded with tiny bacteria, helping them break down leaf cellulose, but their metabolism remains sluggish. 

Sloths take 157 hours to 50 days (1,200 hours) from the time the leaves are eaten to feces. This causes the sloth to be unable to eat large amounts of leaves every day because the sloth's stomach is full of undigested food. Low-calorie leaves, slow digestion, and unable to eat in large quantities may be the reason sloths don't have much energy.

2. Body temperature 

Sloths are characterized as heterothermic animals, having imperfect control over their body temperature. Quoting Britannica, sloths' body temperature is 25 to 35 °C, but their body temperature can drop to as low as 20 °C. At this temperature, the animal becomes inert. 

3. Avoiding predators 

Many people think that the sloth's slow movements will put them in danger of facing predators. However, sloths live in the lowland tropical forests of South and Central America, where they often stay up in tall trees to sunbathe, rest, or eat leaves. 

The sloth's slow movements do not attract much attention from predators below, since jaguars and other carnivorous animals. Additionally, the fur of some sloths is green, colored by the algae that live on the feathers, allowing them to hide among the leaves. Although known for their slow movements, when sloths are caught by a predator, they bite hard, slash with their claws, and scream.