WEBVTT - Why Are Sloths' Toilet Habits So Dangerous?

0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:07.080
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,

0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:10.560
<v Speaker 1>Lauren Vogel Bam here. Sloths are known for their incredibly

0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:13.960
<v Speaker 1>slow moving natures, but it turns out that such sluggishness

0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:17.240
<v Speaker 1>also carries over into their bathroom habits, so much so

0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:20.400
<v Speaker 1>that they only defecate every five to seven days on average,

0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:22.720
<v Speaker 1>and actually lose up to one third of their body

0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.640
<v Speaker 1>weight in a single movement. The stool is pushed out

0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.600
<v Speaker 1>and one fell swoop so impressive that horrified and or

0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:33.680
<v Speaker 1>transfixed bystanders can watch the animals abdomen shrink. We spoke

0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:36.520
<v Speaker 1>via email with Sarah Kennedy, co founder of the Sloth

0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:40.879
<v Speaker 1>Conservation Foundation based in the United Kingdom. She said, if

0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.480
<v Speaker 1>you've ever seen a sloth pooh, you could only ever

0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.240
<v Speaker 1>describe it as pure bliss. They tip their heads back

0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:51.760
<v Speaker 1>and smile. But the week long delay between bowel movements

0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.760
<v Speaker 1>is not even the strangest thing about sloth pooping habits.

0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.800
<v Speaker 1>You see. Sloughs are arboreal creatures, which means they live, work,

0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.440
<v Speaker 1>and play high up in the trees. They're chosen habitats

0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.280
<v Speaker 1>are the rain and cloud forests of Central and South America.

0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:09.199
<v Speaker 1>Most other arboreal animals like monkeys poop from the trees,

0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:13.119
<v Speaker 1>but not sloths. Instead, they make a slow descent from

0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:15.440
<v Speaker 1>the canopy to do their business at the base of

0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:19.040
<v Speaker 1>the trees, and this despite the fact that it's quite perilous.

0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:22.399
<v Speaker 1>Kennedy said, this behavior puts them threat to a lot

0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:24.920
<v Speaker 1>of predators like jungle cats, and wastes a lot of

0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:28.640
<v Speaker 1>their precious energy, which they don't have much of. It

0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.360
<v Speaker 1>turns out that more than half of all sloth deaths

0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.839
<v Speaker 1>occur during potty time, when these creatures are so vulnerable

0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:40.040
<v Speaker 1>to predators. The process comes at a serious price. Zoologist

0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.320
<v Speaker 1>and Sloth Conservation Foundation founder Becky Cliff wrote in a

0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:47.120
<v Speaker 1>blog post a slot's entire lifestyle is based around avoiding

0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:50.560
<v Speaker 1>detection and using as little energy as possible. It takes

0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.320
<v Speaker 1>a sloth an entire month to digest just one leaf,

0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:55.880
<v Speaker 1>meaning they don't have much wiggle room when it comes

0:01:55.920 --> 0:02:00.520
<v Speaker 1>to expending energy. The laborious process of going up and

0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.920
<v Speaker 1>down the tree is compounded by the actual pooping process.

0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:06.520
<v Speaker 1>Sloths do a little dance at the base of the

0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:08.919
<v Speaker 1>tree to create a hole for the feces, and then

0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.480
<v Speaker 1>shake their hind quarters once more to cover it up.

0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:16.080
<v Speaker 1>This process requires you guessed it plenty of precious energy.

0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:19.280
<v Speaker 1>A lot of theories have been put forth about why

0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:21.880
<v Speaker 1>sloths feel the need to expend so much effort and

0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.720
<v Speaker 1>expose themselves to so much danger just to toilet. One

0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:28.880
<v Speaker 1>theory is it sloth moths, which live in sloth hair,

0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.040
<v Speaker 1>actually lay their eggs in the feces during the long

0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.679
<v Speaker 1>poop process. Then once they hatch and mature in their

0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:38.760
<v Speaker 1>carefully prepared environment, they fly up to take residence in

0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.560
<v Speaker 1>the host sloths fur. Many experts, though, are skeptical of

0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:46.440
<v Speaker 1>this explanation because the sloths don't particularly benefit from the behavior,

0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:51.440
<v Speaker 1>and nature isn't generally known for its selfless generosity. More likely,

0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:55.040
<v Speaker 1>but as yet unproven, is that the strange behavior comes

0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.200
<v Speaker 1>back to reproduction, as it so often does when living

0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:02.760
<v Speaker 1>things are involved. Explained, the main reason is probably so

0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.000
<v Speaker 1>that other sloths can find them, a particularly males looking

0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.200
<v Speaker 1>for females. Usually the slaws come down every five to

0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.080
<v Speaker 1>seven days, but when females are in heat it's every day,

0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.880
<v Speaker 1>so it's likely to be mostly to do with reproduction. Indeed,

0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.240
<v Speaker 1>it appears at sloth poop says a lot more about

0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.919
<v Speaker 1>the animal than merely what they've been nothing on. Cliff wrote,

0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:25.919
<v Speaker 1>pheromones present in the uinin feces can provide a lot

0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:29.720
<v Speaker 1>of important information about the individual animal. If the sloths

0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.760
<v Speaker 1>just let everything go from the canopy, these messages would

0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.080
<v Speaker 1>be easily lost. We have heaps of data showing some

0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.160
<v Speaker 1>really interesting patterns between a female's estra cycle and the

0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:43.760
<v Speaker 1>patterns of defecation. We'll be waiting patiently for the answer

0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:48.119
<v Speaker 1>to this mystery, because if observing sloss teaches anything, it's patients.

0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:55.720
<v Speaker 1>Today's episode was written by Aliya Hoyt and produced by

0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.680
<v Speaker 1>Tyler Clang for iHeart Media and How Stuff Works. For

0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.119
<v Speaker 1>more on this and lots of other moving topics, visit

0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:14.160
<v Speaker 1>our home planet, how stuff Works dot com. M