Biology Fun Facts

Natchya Tiwari

Why are sloths so slow?

Everyone one of us must have thought at least once why sloths move and do everything so slowly. I’m trying to answer this question.

Presently, there are six species left in the rainforest canopies of Central and South America. They hang on the trees to avoid predators. They need plenty of leaves to eat. But lots of problems arise due to eating only leaves. Animals get energy from eating food but leaves don’t contain much energy. Sloths have a multi-chambered stomach. They can spend five to seven days or even a week, processing a meal, so another way to save the energy is to use it as little as possible. That is the reason why sloths move themselves really slowly and they spend most of their time eating, resting or sleeping. These physical and behavioral adaptations minimize the sloths’ metabolic rate. Three-toed sloths have the slowest metabolism of any mammals.