Why Are Sloths Moving So Slow?

Jakarta, CNNIndonesia —

Moving slowly as if without the energy and motivation of life is one of the characteristics of mammals that are widely distributed in South America, sloths or sloths. How come?

One of the depictions of sloths that resonates most and makes them popular is through the animation Zootopia (2016). In the film, sloths play the roles of bureaucrat staff; a fitting analogy to the character of the bureaucracy in many countries.

In fact, sloths are also considered to be ‘lazy’ animals and do very little outside of sleeping during the day. In fact, the name ‘sloth’ is taken from English which means ‘lazy’.

In 1749, French naturalist Georges Buffon was the first to describe the creature in his encyclopedia of life sciences.

“These sloths are the lowest form of animal existence. One more flaw would make it impossible for them to survive,” Buffon was quoted as saying The Conversation.

He also considered slow lorises to be too stupid animals. Sometimes, the animals mistake their own arms for tree branches.

The fact that sloths move slowly has been discovered nearly 64 million years ago. Experts point to such characteristics as a survival strategy.

Experts at a sanctuary in Costa Rica monitored the movement and activity patterns of the three-toed mammals using tiny data loggers coupled to tracking devices inside sloth backpacks.

Becky Cliffe, zoologist from Swansea University, revealed that the monitoring results were contrary to popular belief.

“Contrary to popular belief, we found sloths don’t actually spend much time sleeping; they sleep only eight to ten hours a day in the wild,” said he, who is also a researcher at the sanctuary in Costa Rica.

“They do move, but very slowly and always at the same, almost measured speed.”

According to him, moving slowly inevitably requires less energy than moving quickly, and it is this principle that underlies the sloth’s unusual ecology.

Sloths aren’t the only creatures to adopt a slow pace. Cold-blooded ectotherms, such as frogs and snakes, generally move slowly to adjust to cold temperatures.

This is due to their inability to regulate their temperature independently of the environment.

Similar to race ectothermssloths rely on behavioral and postural adjustments to control their own heat loss and gain, exhibiting daily fluctuations in core temperature of up to 10℃.

By constantly moving slowly, sloths burn very little energy and are able to function at the lowest metabolic rate of any non-hibernating mammal.

The lowest metabolic estimates ranged from 40-74 percent of the predicted value relative to the sloth’s body.

“As a result, sloths don’t have to spend a lot of energy or spend time looking for it,” says Cliffe.

Diet on the next page…