Eli5 How are sloths still alive, they are slow with no protection like turtle?
In: Biology
Well, they live in the trees and very rarely come down and they dont wash themselves to the point where moss starts to grow on them, you wouldn’t like to eat that.
They do have protection. They live high in trees, away from predators large enough to harm them. With that taken care of so well, they were free to evolve the unique survival mechanism of a super slow metabolism.
They remain semi-safe in trees, mostly. They also only poop once a week (yes, it’s true); maybe predators don’t want to eat something that filled with poop.
They tend to live up in the trees. However, the leading cause of death for sloths is being eaten when they come down to poop on the ground.
AFAIK They have no natural predator, nothing hunts them. For a bunch of reasons already listed, but mainly because they don’t compete for calories, and eat things most other creatures (especially the same size or bigger than the sloth) do not.
Filthy prey that threatens few, is inconspicuous, doesn’t compete for food sources for much other than slime moulds.
And is OK with slime mould in its fur.
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