The San Diego Zoo has announced the birth of a Linnaeus’s two-toed sloth at the Zoo’s new Denny Sanford Wildlife Explorers Basecamp. The baby sloth was born on June 25 to mother Xena (pronounced Zee-na), who was born at the Zoo in 2013 and is one of the Zoo’s most popular Rady wildlife ambassadors. Wildlife care specialists report that the young sloth is doing well, instinctively clinging to its mother, nursing, and gaining strength each day.
Native to the tropical and cloud forests of Central and South America, sloths are slow-moving, nocturnal creatures that spend almost their entire life upside down in the trees. They eat, sleep, mate, and give birth from this position, using their curved, sharp claws to hang onto the tree branches.
Sloths have long had a reputation for being lazy. The reason they move so slowly has a lot to do with what they eat: a variety of leaves, stems, buds, and some fruit. Due to the low nutritional value of their leafy diet, sloths usually move at a leisurely pace and sleep a great deal, looking for food at night.
This baby sloth, whose sex has yet to be determined, has spent the past month bonding with its mom. It will nurse for about six months, it began eating solid foods at just a few days old and was hanging upside down on its own at around 25 days of age. As wildlife ambassadors for their species, guests may see Xena and her baby during a wildlife presentation at the Rady Ambassador Presentation Area in Wildlife Explorers Basecamp or during an Exclusive VIP Experience—a special five-hour, upgraded Zoo tour.
