Sloths exclusively eat wood leaves, although they can eat an insect or small lizard on occasion. Leaves are difficult to digest and have a very low calorie and nutritional value. To digest leaves, sloths use a symbiotic bacterium that lives in their digestive tract. Digestion takes about a month. A well-fed slothful ⅔ body weight may fall on food in the stomach.
Because of the low calorie content of the leaves, the physiology and behavior of sloths is focused on austerity of energy. Almost all the time sloths spend, hanging on a tree branch with their backs down. In order not to fall from the tree, sloths possess large and sharp claws. 15 hours a day sloth sleep, but also awake, they move very slowly and only when necessary (hence the name). Sloths have a long neck, allowing them to extract leaves from a large area without moving.
The body temperature of the active sloth is 30-34 ° C, and at rest even lower. Sloths do not like to climb down from trees, because on earth they are completely helpless. In addition, it requires energy expenditure. They get down for natural needs, which they do once a week (that’s why they have a huge bladder) and sometimes to go to another tree. Childbirth often occurs on a tree.
