Baby Sloths Just Like To Hang Around
Native to the jungles of Central and South America, the sloth is long-clawed tree dwelling mammal. Baby sloths cling to their mothers after birth for up to nine months. With their long claws, sloths are built for a life of hanging from the trees in the rainforest; eating, sleeping, and relaxing- all upside down! This lazy animal sleeps up to 18 hours a day and moves through the trees at a speed of only 13 inches per minute while awake. On land they are even slower, dragging their bellies across the ground using their long arms. Surprisingly, sloths are good swimmers; they’ll sometimes dive from the treetops directly into rivers and swim along gracefully without missing a beat. Although they may be one of the slowest moving creatures on earth, sloths are also one of the most intelligent! In experiments, sloths showed the same level of intelligence in a maze made of vine and rope as cats did in a similarly plotted maze on the ground.
