These funny creatures look like a strange cross between bears and monkeys. Read on to learn about their similarities with other animals, including the connection between sloths and anteaters. Sloths are very unique-looking animals. In fact, scientists have found that they are not as easy to classify as many other animals are.
For example, while we can see that dogs and coyotes have many shared characteristics, we cannot easily find animals that share similarities with sloths. Looking at them, would you ever guess that they are most closely grouped with anteaters?
To understand family classification, it helps to know the system that is used to categorize animals. Every animal species is grouped on different levels according to certain features they have in common. Anteaters and sloths have many similarities ,they share similar classification and they are both related.
They are both classed as members of the animal kingdom kingdom: Animalia , and then as vertebrates phylum: Chordata. Next, they classify as mammals class: Mammalia. They are then placed in a subcategory of certain mammals found in the Americas superorder: Xenarthra.
Interestingly, this group also contains armadillos. Sloths, anteaters, and armadillos are unusual because they have one set of teeth that lasts all their lives, unlike many mammals that lose their baby teeth. Additionally, xenarthrans also have unusual joints in their spines, can only see one color, and have an extremely low metabolism.
Sloths and anteaters are separated from armadillos due to having hair Order: Pilosa. Yet there are also many differences between sloths and anteaters. Anteaters are carnivorous, as they eat insects, and they also live on the ground. Sponges Crab vs. Lobster Mink vs. Weasel Porcupine vs. Hedgehog Armadillo vs. Pangolin Beetles vs. Bugs Grasshopper vs. Cricket Marmoset vs. Tamarin Squirrel vs.
Chipmunk Whale shark vs. Whale Dingo vs. Dog Giant panda vs. Red panda Python vs. Boa constrictor Raccoon vs. Raccoon dog Wolf vs. Click here for our full privacy policy. Skip to content. What is a sloth? With their hook-like fingers and toes, sloths spend most of their life dangling upside-down underneath tree branches in the rainforests of Central and South America. While they are often mistaken as being a type of monkey, sloths are actually related to anteaters and armadillos!
Sloths are part of the Folivora suborder within the ancient Xenarthra superorder. There are six species of sloth split between two very different families: two-fingered sloths and three-fingered sloths All sloths are folivores which means they eat only leaves. They have the slowest metabolic rate of any non-hibernating mammal and it takes a sloth 30 days to digest a single leaf! Sloths sleep for hours a day and move slowly to avoid being seen by predators.
Sloths often appear green due to the growth of algae and fungi in their fur. This helps them camouflage in the rainforest canopy. No one knows how long sloths can live for. Sloths are solitary, but they will happily share trees with other sloths. A female sloth will have 1 baby approximately every 2 years and she will spend a full 12 months raising her baby. Two-fingered and three-fingered sloths There are 6 species of sloth split between two very different families: the three-fingered Bradypodidae, genus: Bradypus and the two-fingered Megalonychidae, genus: Choloepus.
Are they related to bears? Sloths are actually part of a super ancient and super strange family of mammals called the xenarthrans pronounced zen-ar-thrans. In fact, it is thought that this family is one of the oldest groups of mammals left alive today and it includes our beloved sloths as well as anteaters and armadillos.
Among the most famous and ancient of all xenarthrans is probably the Megatherium — an extinct type of Giant Ground Sloth that grew to over 25 feet tall!
The first fossils of this animal were originally found by Charles Darwin near Patagonia, Argentina. Did you know that these giant sloths are the reason why we have avocados today? We will dive into the xenarthran family history in more detail in a future post, but for today we want to focus on the sloths closest relative: the anteaters! The obvious definition would be an animal that eats ants and termites — but this would actually apply to all kinds of unrelated animals such as the aardvark , numbat , echidna and pangolin.
Scientists originally thought that these different species of ant-eating animals were all directly related because of their similarities: the diet, long tongues, very few teeth, powerful forearms, and tube-like snouts. Convergent evolution is a process where two very different species develop similar traits.
The two types of sloth that we see today are also fantastic examples of this — they separated off from each other approximately 30 million years ago and acquired their upside down arboreal lives independently.
Before we talk about the different types of anteater yes, there are 4 very different species , lets take a moment to appreciate how wonderfully weird these animals are. Eating insects can be complicated. If you have ever accidentally disturbed an ants nest you will know how unpleasant they can be when aggravated!
To avoid this painful situation, an anteater has to act quickly. Thankfully they have ridiculous tongues which makes the whole process much easier.
The tongue of an anteater starts at the breastbone and can extend up to two feet long. It is also covered in backward-facing spines and super-sticky saliva for maximum insect collection.
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