Sloths My speech today is about sloths Sloths are mammals that come from South America. Many people think sloths look funny with their small heads, long arms and shaggy fur coats. They look almost like a very hairy person and as though they are smiling. There are two different types of sloth two toed and three toed but all up there are six species of sloth. They are about the size of a medium sized dog. Sloths have very long curved claws on their front and back feet which with their long limbs helps them to hang on to branches to eat leaves that other animals can’t reach. Sloths live in tree canopies of central and south american rainforests. Their long claws which measure 8 - 10 cms make walking on the ground very difficult so they spend most of the time in the trees. Thousands of years ago, sloths were much larger. Ancient sloths could grow to be as large as an elephant. They roamed North America and became extinct around 10,000 years ago. Sloths live for 20 to 30 years in the wild, but captive sloths tend to live a bit longer. In 2017, a captive sloth at a zoo in Australia lived to 43. Sloths are incredibly slow because they have very slow metabolisms. They move at a sluggish pace through the trees. In a whole day they will have moved only around 37 metres. However they are really good swimmers because rainforests can flood and they need to swim to survive. They live on their own and rarely interact with other sloths unless it is breeding season. Diet Two-toed sloths are omnivores so they eat plants and animals. Their diet includes fruits, leaves, insects and small lizards. Three-toed sloths, on the other hand, are herbivores. They eat mainly leaves and buds from certain trees. Sloths are relatively defenseless creatures, however their populations aren't struggling as a whole. Despite this, humans pose a threat to sloths through deforestation and poaching. Some of the sloth species are considered vulnerable to extinction and the three toed pygmy sloth is critically endangered. Are they under threat? Why? Their biggest threat is deforestation. It is a huge threat to their habitat.