Two: Sloths Urinate and Defecate just once a week In fact, this is one of the only times they ever venture down from their leafy and branchy abode.
Three-toed sloths cut down on the inconvenience by only pooping an average of once every week, a frequency that would have most of us downing laxatives and praying for death.
After this, they look skyward and slowly close their eyes, which indicates that they have started urinating. This can last several minutes and produces up to two liters of urine. This is why sloths don't drink water, but derive the liquid in their diet from the food they eat.
Once on the ground, the sloth does what Cliffe calls a “poo dance” which helps to create a small hole in the soil for the scat to go in. Post-defecation, the sloth does another quick Truffle Shuffle before clambering right back up the tree it came down.
Sloths are creatures of habit. They poop once a week and usually in the same spot. Their slow metabolism means they can go for long stretches between... movements... and they have to climb down to the forest floor to do so.
The entry on sloths explains that while they eat a lot of plants, they avoid releasing gas through the quirk of their slow digestion. “They only poo about every three weeks,” says Rabaiotti. If gases accumulated in sloths' intestines over that long a time, they might get sick — and even burst.
That's very much credible, seeing as they are arboreal animals who mostly feed on leaves. While it is not something you want to stay around all day, sloth poop isn't nearly as smelly and pungent as dog poop or human poop.
Due to their inherent lack of aggression, sloths are not a threat to humans. Sloths are solitary creatures who want to be left alone, thus unlike household animals, they do not like to be touched. So, if you come too close for their comfort, they can be deadly and severely hurt people.
Sloths snooze for about 15 hours per day. That leaves only nine hours to lumber through the trees.
Sloths are legally blind.
These slow animals have rod monochromacy, a rare condition that means they lack cone cells in their eyes. Because of this sloths are colorblind, and can only see very poorly in dim lighting. Luckily, sloths incredible sense of smell more than makes up for this.
What is this? Fun fact #10: Sloths don't smell. In fact, they do not give off any sort of body odor as a way of staying camouflaged. Because they move so slowly, algae actually grows on their fur, making them smell like trees, thus protecting them further.
Koalas have them beat in the nap department, clocking in an impressive 18 to 22 hours of rest a day. The koala's diet takes a lot of energy to digest so resting helps them conserve energy to do so.
Having a good spatial memory is important for sloths as they have poor eyesight. They navigate around their home ranges using their memory and sense of smell! However, the sloths social skills and problem solving abilities are somewhat lacking, which often leads to them being labelled as “stupid”.
Sloths are often hunted by predators such as harpy eagles, ocelots, and jaguars, who mainly rely on movement to track their prey.
The three-toed sloth emits a long, high-pitched call that echoes through the forests as “ahh-eeee.” Because of this cry these sloths are sometimes called ais (pronounced “eyes”).
As adorable as sloths are—especially babies—these furry creatures should not be kept as pets.
Because they are wild animals, sloths do not crave or seek out human contact (even hand-raised ones once they have reached maturity). So unfortunately no matter how much love you plan on showering on your pet sloth, they will simply not reciprocate.
It looks like a skunk, but it's much worse. Possibly the stinkiest animal in the world, the striped polecat's butt stink can burn its enemies' eyes and temporarily blind them. Stinkbirds have two-chamber digestive systems like cows, so they excrete a manure-like smell.
Sloths actually produce no body odour because they do not sweat. A strong smell would give their presence away to predators and so sloths smell just like the trees that they live in! It is a common misconception that sloths are dirty and smelly because they can sometimes look a little 'bedraggled' when wet.
According to multiple reports across the internet, hippos are the animals with the loudest farts. This isn't surprising because the average hippo weighs over 3,300 pounds!
Nearly all animals burp and fart. Kangaroos, however, are special. The gas they pass is easy on the planet. Some might even call it “green” because it contains less methane than emissions from other grass grazers, such as cows and goats.
As weird as it might sound, snakes pass gas once in a while. This means it'll be normal to notice your pet snake farting once in a while. However, this is a rare occurrence often used to clean their cloaca or scare off an attacker. As long as you keep your snake on a healthy diet, it should occasionally pass gas.
Testicles are internal, but external genitalia is visible. Not so with Bradypus (three-fingered sloth)) babies. For both genders, reproductive organs are internal, so until sexual maturity, male and female Bradypus babies look similar.
This extraordinary plant predator is half blind, half deaf and spends most of its time sleeping in trees. So how does a sloth's day compare to ours?
As a result all sloths are colour-blind, can only see poorly in dim light and are completely blind in bright daylight. Thankfully, sloths compensate for such poor vision by having a phenomenal sense of smell and a great spatial memory!