Sloth (Folivora)
These slow moving mammals are from South-America and they belong to the Pilosa-order with anteaters. Sloths have six species, four in Three- toed and two in Two-toed sloth family.
Sloths eat very low energy and nutrition containing leaves that are poorly digestible. That is why sloths have large and specialized in stomach where symbiotic bacteria break up the leave material. The digestive process can even take as much as one month and the stomach contents can weigh up to two third of the weight of sloth.
Because the poor food sloths have to use energy very economically, that is why they have slow metabolism. Sloths are so slow movers that they can grow algae in their fur! Another specialty is that they grow their fur upside down from toes to back because they are so adapted living hanging in trees. They also have very strong and long claws for protection and hanging from trees spending as little energy as possible.
