This Two-Toed Sloth Is an Excellent Swimmer

(gentle music)
- [Woman] This is Aspen, a two-toed sloth.
Sloths spend almost their entire lives hanging in trees
and do nearly everything upside down.
Eating, sleeping, mating, even giving birth.
Since it spends so much time upside down,
a sloth's fur grows in the opposite direction
of all other mammals.
This allows water to run off the sloth when it rains.
Its fur also has minute grooves that collect and grow algae,
giving wild sloths a greenish tint
and providing excellent camouflage.
A sloth's powerful claws are perfectly adapted
for gripping and climbing trees,
but become a nuisance when on the ground.
Surprisingly though they are excellent swimmers
and have been known to drop into the water
and swim to a new tree.
Despite these adaptations, sloths face many threats.
Their forest homes are increasingly becoming fragmented,
making breeding difficult,
and they are a popular target for traffickers
in the illegal pet trade.
This is the two-toed sloth.

This Two-Toed Sloth Is an Excellent Swimmer

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