Even with plenty of food around a sloth can starve to death when there are clouds in the sky. Why? This is a real question. Recommend any websites to find answer?
2007-11-27 20:36:29 · 4 answers · asked by e s 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Zoology
because they're slow as snails.
2007-11-27 20:40:52 · answer #1 · answered by mr x krazy 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I have a funny feeling that sloths descend to the ground when it is dark and go back up the tree to feed in daylight. I guess it if is dark and cloudy they might get confused????????
I have been on the web and I think I know what this is about. Ignore the above, sloths are nocturnal and feed at night. They spend all the daylight hours sleeping. Because the food they consume is so low in calories and is so fibrous it takes hours to digest. A tree sloths size is limited by the weight it can reach and still reach it's food supply so the size of the gut is also limited.
A sloth is permanently living on the edge of a calorie deficit and needs to conserve energy as much as possible. The balance between hours spent feeding and sleeping/digesting is critical.
If this is upset by shortened daylight hours then the sloth may consume too much energy moving about.
I wonder if this is true or just a myth.
2007-11-28 05:27:58 · answer #2 · answered by insomnia c 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
As sloths live in rainforests there are clouds around most days. The sloths live in the canopy and the sky is usually blocked by the leaves of the tree they are in and they don't see the sky. The presence or absence of cloud makes no difference to sloths.
Sloths do descend from the tree to defecate but they spend most of their lives in the canopy.
2007-11-28 05:33:53 · answer #3 · answered by tentofield 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
If that were true, sloths would have become extinct a long time ago.
2007-11-28 12:08:04 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋