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Text: Vientiane hardcore
Edited by Vientiane hardcore
«——【Preamble】】 ——»
The laziest animal in the animal kingdom, there is no one, it is a sloth, and it has to be lapped when it races with turtles, and it is a famous "lazy man" in the tropical jungle.
It has been on the tree for almost all its life, from birth to death, it is on the same tree as it is, it can not move, and even if the child falls from the tree, they will not lift their eyelids, let alone go down to pick up the child, why is the sloth lazy to such a point?
But the only exception for sloths is that they have to go down the tree to go to the toilet, and they have a mysterious attachment to this, and some people have counted that more than half of the sloths are hunted by natural enemies when they go to the toilet when they go to the toilet.
The sloth knows that it is dangerous to go down the tree, why does it have to go down the tree to go to the toilet, does it have obsessive-compulsive disorder?
«【The highest state of laziness·】»
In the world of "lazy people", the sloth is called second, and no animal dares to call it first, how lazy is it?
The name "sloth" is given because it always hangs on the tree and does not move, and its living habits are very simple, that is, staying in the tree, typically being able to lie down and never stand.
They don't move more than one meter a day, and even if they encounter predators, they can only move no more than ten meters in a minute.
The newborn cubs of the sloth will not climb trees, they can only grasp the hair on the mother's body, but the cubs will also fall off the tree when their hands slip, but the mother sloth will not show any emotions, will not even move, and will not pick up the child.
In Costa Rica, someone saw a newborn sloth cub almost fall off, but fortunately, the umbilical cord pulled the cub in time, and the sloth mother picked up the cub again.
If there is anything "diligent" about the sloth, it is estimated that it is in the breeding area, which can give it the motivation to go faster, but its "chronic child" may not meet a person of the opposite sex for five years.
How does a sloth move so slowly, how does it forage for food? Doesn't this walking speed starve itself to death?
The sloth is not only lazy in action, it can also save money in eating, how to streamline how to come, an adult sloth will not weigh more than 20 pounds at most, and the usual food is almost all the leaves of the trees they inhabit.
Surprisingly, they eat fifty or sixty grams of leaves a day, and sometimes a leaf can be eaten for half a month, and it has not been completely digested, and it is not even too lazy to feed food into its mouth and is unwilling to chew it.
But its appetite has a lot to do with its body structure, its intestines are very long, and the stomach is large, which can occupy one-third of the body and can store a lot of food.
And there is a lot of fiber in the leaves, they eat into the stomach is very full, it takes a long time to digest, plus they do not like to move, energy consumption is also very small, metabolism is slow, their hunger tolerance is very strong, up to a month without eating.
This "lazy" way of eating causes them to go to the toilet very rarely, usually once a week, but only three or four times a month, but even the only few times they are at the most dangerous time.
«【Death due to going to the toilet】»
The sloth is a highly arboreal animal, its arboreal degree has evolved to almost lose the ability to survive on land, it is done from birth to death, including reproduction, it is done on trees, and it hangs on branches with its claws all year round.
But three or four times a month they will go down to the tree without moving, just to go to the toilet, after the sloth will lose the shelter of the leaves, and the predators on the ground will easily catch its tracks.
Sloths going to the toilet is also a fairly slow process, generally about six hours, each time the sloth goes to the toilet can effectively lose weight, can lose about one-third of the body weight, which is also a big project.
Before going to the toilet, it will dig a pit to be used as a toilet, and then it will come here every time to use the toilet.
After going to the toilet, the sloths will not be in a hurry to climb to the tree to hide, they will ritually "dance" around their dung, and then bury the pit before slowly going up to the tree.
Although sloths are diligent in going to the toilet in trees, the process of going to the toilet is very slow, so it is not uncommon for them to be caught by predators in the middle of going to the toilet.
Jaguars and horned eagles are its greatest predators, and sloths are almost certain to die if they do, after all, they run away with an unflattering speed.
There are also animals in nature that go directly to the toilet when lying on the tree, and even the giant panda will "airdrop" the big youth group while sleeping, so why do sloths have to risk their lives to go down the tree to the toilet?
At first, there was speculation that sloths would go to the toilet and bury them under the trees to avoid the smell of feces attracting predators, but this was quickly disproved and a more scientifically plausible conclusion was widely accepted.
There is a moth hidden in the sloth's hair, which is named the sloth moth because it is found on the sloth.
Because of the long-term parasitic life, the wings on the sloth moth are very degraded and can no longer fly, and the sloth is their "home" for them.
Every time the sloth goes to the toilet, the sloth moths will lay their eggs in the feces to hatch, and the next time the sloth goes down to the toilet, the hatched pups will return to the sloth, and then slowly grow up.
The sloth and the sloth moth live together in such harmony, but the sloth seems to be more "at a loss", why does it allow the sloth moth to parasitize on it, and what can it get from the parasitism of the sloth moth?
«【What do sloths live on until now?»
Sloths certainly don't let sloth moths parasitize in vain, which brings us to another creature on sloths, green algae.
Because sloths live in trees all year round, they are still very slow, and they can't be without life-saving skills.
The hair of the sloth is very different, it grows upside down from the bottom up, because they hang upside down on the tree all year round, and such hair is not easily soaked by rain.
Sloths themselves are also very sensitive to temperature, once the temperature drops below 27 degrees Celsius, they will shiver all over, and temperatures above 35 degrees will also affect their normal life.
There is also a green algae that inhabits their hair, which provides them with a more effective protective color, and in addition, the sloths are not mobile, so they are difficult to find in the woods.
However, the growth of this green algae requires some special elements to maintain, and the sloth moth happens to provide it, and the three of them form a closed loop of ecological cycle.
The sloth provides a habitat for the sloth moth, the sloth moth provides nourishment for the green algae, which in turn provides the sloth with a camouflaged protective color.
The sloth's natural camouflage can certainly hide some of its natural predators, but it is not only on this reason that it has survived until now.
The sloths eat a lot of soup every day, and there is nothing nutritious, which leads to their body except for bones and thick fur, there is not much meat, and its meat quality is still very poor, and few animals will hunt it.
Reference:
The Paper "Sloths Move So Slowly, Why Aren't They Extinct?", 2023-7-3
People's information "Don't be a "lying flat" sloth" 2022-3-4
The Paper "Sloths Are So Lazy, Why Do They Have to Go Down Trees to Poop?", 2023-10-23
Global Network "Costa Rican Sloth Baby Fell from a Tree Just Born and Was Fortunately Pulled by the Umbilical Cord", 2020-3-6