Meet Sid the sloth!

Laura Young
ECB Publishing, Inc.

Red light radiates from a heat lamp throughout the newest residence at the North Florida Wildlife Center (NFWC). It's keeping the temperatures at a toasty 80-plus degrees, which is just how Sid likes it.
Sid is a Linnaeus's two-toed sloth who has recently made NFWC his home, joining lemurs, a red kangaroo, pelicans, hornbills, a giant anteater, fruit bats, a hedgehog, storks, cranes, guinea-fowl, a snake eagle, buzzards, owls, a crocodile monitor, skinks, lizards and a mudskipper – who all together make NFWC one of the most interesting places you can visit in Jefferson County.
Sloths are the slowest moving mammals on the planet, and Sid is the first and only one to have ever lived in Florida's Big Bend region.
Sid was born just over a year ago in a facility and has adapted quickly to his new home in Lamont. Before arriving, he had already become independent from his mom and taken up the generally solitary life of a sloth. In the wild, sloths live in the rainforests of Central and South America, keeping to the treetops except for perhaps once-a-week treks to the forest floor. He arrived weighing five pounds, and is eating well, (especially enjoying the broccoli bits!).
In a few years, when he's full-gown, he could bulk up to as much as 25 pounds.
Like other Linnaeus's two-toed sloths, Sid's coarse, light brown fur grows upward from his belly to his back. That's different! Another interesting fact about sloth fur is that, over time, it might take on a greenish tint due to algae growing on it. A person probably wouldn't want to accumulate an algae film, but for a sloth it has advantages. A green-tinted sloth more easily blends in with the trees where it lives, providing helpful camouflage against predators. Sloths can also lick the algae off their fur, perhaps the ultimate portable snack in between regular meals of berries, leaves, twigs and insects.
NFWC's Director of Animal Care, Jordan Garella, says that Sid sleeps for most of the day (15 to 20 hours) under his heat lamp, because he's nocturnal. At night, he's “busy” moving – slowly, of course – to eat, play and explore. These animals move at a speed of about three meters (10 feet) per minute. To get a sense of sloth time, try taking a minute rather than a second to walk 10 feet. You won't work up a sweat, that's for sure. Slow metabolism and slow movement contribute to a sloth's need for a rather hot environment.
“Sloths have to be kept at 80 degrees, at least,” Garella adds, “because they cannot warm up like other mammals. They actually do not have the ability to shiver to help control their body temperature.”
That's why Sid currently stays indoors, protected from winter weather that, even in Florida, is too cold for him. NFWC Executive Director Ryan Reines is developing an outdoor component for Sid's residence, and when the weather gets balmy enough, the window of Sid's enclosure will be opened up so that he can go out and bask in it. In addition, Garella explains that sloths become less sensitive to temperatures as they get older, so as time goes by Sid will be able to be in and out more often.
“Wild sloths do spend pretty much all of their time up in the trees,” Garella notes. “The interesting thing about sloths that we're still trying to understand is that they will actually travel down to the ground only for two occasions. They will travel down to the ground to move from one tree to another or even to cross a river or unfortunately a road, where they commonly get hit by cars. So they will only travel to the ground if they have no way to go to the next tree up high.”
Unlike most other arboreal species, sloths also will go down to the ground about once a week to defecate or urinate, rather then just letting their waste drop down from above.
Sid is taking a friendly interest in the staff who care for him as well as his first visitors. That's a good sign for the near future, when he'll join NFWC's group of ambassador animals who interact with and educate the public about threatened and endangered species and habitats.
Sloths have a lot of characteristics that make them just plain fascinating and different from other mammals. Websites like animal.bio are full of fun facts about them, but perhaps the best way to learn about sloths lies just down the road at NFWC, through a personal encounter with an actual sloth.
Reines is excited to have a sloth at NFWC because, even though sloths are not endangered like most of the resident animals there, visitors are enthralled with the opportunity to meet such a frankly weird creature. Plus sloths have a lot they can teach us about the natural world and life in the rainforests.
To plan a tour, field trip or animal encounter at NFWC, visit northfloridawildlife.org.