Dead sloth

There are two families of sloths, divided by the number of claws on their front paws. The two-toed ones are divided into two species and the three-toed ones are divided into four species.

The closest relatives are the anteater and the armadillo, which you can also experience at Aalborg Zoo
A newborn chick is fully developed, with open eyes and large claws. It uses them to climb onto its mother's belly, but after only 3 weeks it can hang itself.

Adaptations to a life hanging in the trees are many. The internal organs are positioned differently, the fur grows differently, the neck has very mobile joints. At the same time, the adaptation to a high-fibre and often toxic diet has meant that the stomach is very similar to a ruminant stomach, albeit with a short gut.

Muscle mass is very low, the lowest for a mammal, and the sloth cannot actually stand on its legs, but has to drag itself along when it is on the ground at 16 metres per hour. In the trees, they can move at up to 144 metres per hour.

Although sloths do everything slowly, there's no mistaking their ability to defend themselves with both teeth and claws. However, their best defence is camouflage. Algae grows in their fur to help with this.

The sloth toilets on the ground, about once a week at the foot of its favourite tree, the cecropia.
Its eyesight is poor, but its sense of smell is extremely good. The sloth is also a good swimmer.

The animals live separately, but the female stays with her young for up to two years.

• Distribution: Central and South America's warm, humid cloud and rainforests.
• Population: The sloth is not endangered, but the population and its habitats are shrinking every day due to hunting and the felling and burning of forests.
• Weight: Adult: 4-9 kilos. Newborn: 350-450 grams
• Body length: 54-74 centimetres
• Sexual maturity: Male: from 4-5 years of age. Female: from the age of 3 years
• Gestation: 5-6 months
• Number of cubs: Usually one
• Food: Leaves, shoots, fruit and occasionally insects and small animals
• Zoo menu: Spinach, vegetables and fruit, boiled egg
• Lifespan: 10-15 years. In zoos up to 40 years
• Latin name: Choloepus didactylus

Toilet visits are a rarity

Sloths are purpose-built for their life in the treetops. The hairs in their fur face the opposite direction so that water can run off their bodies when it rains, and they can turn their heads unusually far so that they can orientate themselves and not just hang and look up at the sky. But as their name suggests, they are not the fastest animals in the forest. With a "top speed" of 2.5 metres per minute, most people can keep up with the sloths as they move around. And it's not just their movements that are slow, it's their digestion too.

Sloths live in trees and sleep or rest most of the time. They only come down once or twice a week to go to the toilet. So you don't have to worry about getting faeces on your head, even if the sloths crawl right over you. In the wild, toilet visits can be even rarer because sloths' food is very nutrient-poor. But in the zoo, where they are fed vegetables, a little fruit and some special pellets for leaf-eating animals, there is more energy in the food, so it speeds up digestion.

(Almost) always alone

Sloths are solitary, meaning they live separately in the wild and only seek each other out when it's time to mate. This behaviour can also be observed in the tropical house at Aalborg Zoo. During the mating season, the trees are alive with activity as they chase each other around, but the rest of the time they prefer to stay apart in the enclosure, which can lead to a small crisis if they meet on one of the vines, because then they have to negotiate who is going to back up, and they don't seem to be happy to meet each other at all. The same goes for mum and baby. The cub will gradually leave the mother for longer and longer periods of time and crawl around on its own until it eventually lives completely independently and then the two have nothing to do with each other.

The birdseed thief

The sloths are served their food in small bowls in the trees, and this is a good chance for Zoo visitors to see the sloths as they crawl on the vines right in front of your nose. The rest of the time it can be a little harder to spot them high up in the treetops. But the male in particular has a sweet tooth, and he likes to crawl between the food bowls to secure the sweet morsels of fear before he starts on the vegetables. He also has a penchant for birdseed, which is usually reserved for the Conure birds that also live in the South American tropical house. Sometimes zookeepers catch him red-handed with his nose stuck in seeds, so he can't escape stealing the birds' seeds. The sloths also like to eat from the ficus trees in the facility, especially when they have new fresh shoots, so during those times they don't get down to the feeding bowls as much.