Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vogelbomb, and today's episode is a classic from
Speaker 1: the Vault. In this one, we get into the yes,
Speaker 1: gross but fascinating world of sloths toilet habits, and why
Speaker 1: pooping is one of the most dangerous things these animals do.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbomb. Here. Sloths are known for
Speaker 1: their incredibly slow moving natures, but it turns out that
Speaker 1: such sluggishness also carries over into their bathroom habits, so
Speaker 1: much so that they only defecate every five to seven
Speaker 1: days on average, and actually lose up to one third
Speaker 1: of their body weight in a single movement. The stool
Speaker 1: is pushed out in one fell swoop, so impressive that
Speaker 1: horrified and or transfixed bystanders can watch the animal's aptomen shrink.
Speaker 1: We spoke via email with Sarah Kennedy, co founder of
Speaker 1: the Sloth Conservation Foundation based in the United Kingdom. She said,
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen a sloth pooh, you could only
Speaker 1: ever describe it as pure bliss. They tip their heads
Speaker 1: back and smile, but the weak, long delay between bowel
Speaker 1: movements is not even the strangest thing about sloth pooping habits.
Speaker 1: You see, sloths are arboreal creatures, which means they live, work,
Speaker 1: and play high up in the trees. Their chosen habitats
Speaker 1: are the rain and cloud forests of Central and South America.
Speaker 1: Most other arboreal animals, like monkeys, poop from the trees,
Speaker 1: but not sloths. Instead, they make a slow descent from
Speaker 1: the canopy to do their business at the base of
Speaker 1: the trees. And this despite the fact that it's quite perilous.
Speaker 1: Kennedy said, this behavior puts them threat to a lot
Speaker 1: of predators like jungle cats, and wastes a lot of
Speaker 1: their precious energy, which they don't have much of. It
Speaker 1: turns out that more than half of all sloth deaths
Speaker 1: occur during potty time, when these creatures are so vulnerable
Speaker 1: to predators. The process comes at a serious price. Zoologist
Speaker 1: and Sloth Conservation Foundation and founder Becky Cliff wrote in
Speaker 1: a blog post a sloth's entire lifestyle is based around
Speaker 1: avoiding detection and using as little energy as possible. It
Speaker 1: takes a sloth an entire month to digest just one leaf,
Speaker 1: meaning they don't have much wiggle room when it comes
Speaker 1: to expending energy. The laborious process of going up and
Speaker 1: down the tree is compounded by the actual pooping process.
Speaker 1: Sloths do a little dance at the base of the
Speaker 1: tree to create a hole for the feces, and then
Speaker 1: shake their hind quarters once more to cover it up.
Speaker 1: This process requires you guessed it, plenty of precious energy.
Speaker 1: A lot of theories have been put forth about why
Speaker 1: sloths feel the need to expend so much effort and
Speaker 1: expose themselves to so much danger just to toilet. One
Speaker 1: theory is that sloth moths, which live in sloth hair,
Speaker 1: actually lay their eggs in the feces during the long
Speaker 1: poop process. Then, once they hatch and mature in their
Speaker 1: carefully prepared environment, they fly up to take residence in
Speaker 1: the host sloth's fur. A Many experts are skeptical of
Speaker 1: this explanation because the sloths don't particularly benefit from the
Speaker 1: behavior and nature isn't generally known for its selfless generosity.
Speaker 1: More likely, but as yet unproven, is that the strange
Speaker 1: behavior comes back to reproduction, as it so often does
Speaker 1: when living things are involved. Kennedy explained the main reason
Speaker 1: is probably so that other sloths can find them, particularly
Speaker 1: males looking for females. Usually this loss come down every
Speaker 1: five to seven days, but when females are in heat
Speaker 1: it's every day, so it's likely to be mostly to
Speaker 1: do with reproduction. Indeed, it appears at sloth poop says
Speaker 1: a lot more about the animal than merely what they've
Speaker 1: been gnaching on. Cliff wrote, pheromones present in the urinine
Speaker 1: feces can provide a lot of important information about the
Speaker 1: individual animal. If the sloths just let everything go from
Speaker 1: the canopy, these messages would be easily lost. We have
Speaker 1: heaps of data showing some really interesting patterns between a
Speaker 1: female's estracycle and the patterns of defecation. We'll be waiting
Speaker 1: patiently for the answer to this mystery, because if observing
Speaker 1: slots teaches anything it's patience. Today's episode is based on
Speaker 1: the article Sloth's only poop once a week, but they
Speaker 1: make it a good one on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written
Speaker 1: by Leah Hoyt. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in
Speaker 1: partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang.
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