(laughter)
- [Man] What's he doing?
- [Man #2] Why doesn't he use his hands?
- [Man] I'm going to start scratching
my head with my foot more.
- That's some adorable
footage of a baby sloth,
which is great in its own right,
but we're gonna get down to
one of the big quandaries
about these slow-moving mammals.
- Poop!
(funky music)
- [Robert] Generally, one has
to look up into the branches
to see a sloth.
That's where they live, after all,
but as seen in this video
from David Attenborough's
Life of Mammals, that's
not where they poop.
- [Julie] They come down
from their leafy refuge
once a week to do their
business and bury it,
a dangerous move in the jungle.
- [Robert] So why does a
sloth take that long, slow,
and dangerous trek down from the branches
to relive itself?
It's one of the great pooping mysteries
of the animal kingdom,
but we do have a few strong
theories on the matter.
- [Julie] There's always the old
evolutionary baggage argument that says
it's just something left
over from when sloths
lived on the ground in
super giant awesome mode.
But these theories fascinate us the most.
- [Robert] Number one, stealth pooping.
If you've ever defecated
from the branches of a tree,
you know that this can cause quite a stir
down below on the ground.
The sight and sound of
falling herbivore poop
sends the unmistakable
signal that something edible
is up there right now.
So, sloths may climb down
for their weekly toilet
to avoid drawing such
attention to themselves.
- [Julie] Theory number
two, pooping it forward.
Sloths spend days or even years living in
and eating in the same tree,
so another theory involves
a kind of giving back
on the part of the mossy ones.
By making poop deliveries
to the root system,
they're helping to nourish
the trees they depend on.
- [Robert] Theory number three,
visit my feces book page.
As humans, we often forget,
or choose to forget,
you can learn a lot about
somebody from his or her feces.
Some scientists theorize
that sloths carry out
their weekly poop missions
in order to mark territory
or even leave a fecal calling
card for potential mates.
- [Julie] How's that for a valentine?
- [Robert] Now you might
still be wondering why sloths
are so slow to begin with.
Well, the creature's
lethargic nature allows it
to make the most of its
surrounding resources.
- [Julie] Imagine if you
ate nothing but salad greens
for a week without taking
in any fats or protein.
You probably wouldn't have a
ton of excess energy either.
- [Robert] The sloth's diet,
which may also include fruits,
flower buds, and branches,
doesn't provide much nutrition.
To compensate, sloths have
a host of adaptations,
in addition to their slow pace,
that allows for them to
survive on such a lean diet.
- [Julie] A 1983 study
found that captive sloths
slept 16 hours out of a
day, which put them among
the heaviest snoozers
in the animal kingdom.
Meanwhile, wild sloths, who
have to do a lot more foraging,
average ten hours a day.
Either way, they're all
about slowing their roll
as much as possible.
- [Robert] Sloths also conserve energy
by breaking down their food
at an incredibly slow rate.
While it takes humans about
a day to digest a meal,
the sloth digestive system
spends up to a month
on the project.
- [Julie] In addition to lowered
internal body temperatures,
a sloth's metabolic rate
is about 40 to 45% slower
than comparably sized mammals.
And since they don't need
to run about at high speeds,
they boast half the muscle mass
of other animals their size.
- Finally, all that algae
that grows on their fur,
well, it allows sloths to lick themselves
for additional nutrition
when times get tough.
So which of these slothly
attributes would you like
to incorporate into your own life?
- Let us know in the comments below.
And to keep the videos a-comin',
make sure to subscribe.
