ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - The newest resident at the St. Louis Aquarium is Coconut the Linnaeus’ two-toed sloth.
She was unveiled to the media on Thursday and will celebrate her first birthday on Feb. 20. The Aquarium says she will be an animal ambassador at the St. Louis Aquarium.
She came to the Aquarium from another zoological facility and was born in human care. Coconut currently weighs a little over 2.5 pounds. She sleeps about 20 hours a day, which is normal for a young sloth. (Adult sloths sleep about 15-20 hours a day.) Coconut's animal care managers say she is calm by nature but gets active and impatient when she knows it’s time to eat.
The animal care team members are spending time allowing Coconut to literally hang on them for the next couple of years to mimic their natural behavior. Sloths are primarily solitary, but young sloths stay near their mothers for the first 1-2 years and remain close for up to 4 years.
She still needs time to get acclimated to her new home, but in time will be making regular appearances and allow guests to get up close and personal. Every day, Aquarium associates will bring out animals like sugar gliders, turtles, snakes, skinks and hissing cockroaches. Guests should check in on social media @aquariumstl for updates and animal ambassador schedules when available.
Sloths in human care are known to live to about 30-40 years, while sloths in the wild generally live less than 20 years. Sloths usually reach a weight between 8-18 pounds and are between 23-28 inches in length.
Although known to be slow, sloths will use their very long, sharp teeth and long, sharp claws to defend themselves, if necessary. Their fur varies from gray-brown to beige, but in the wild it generally develops a green color due to the algae that grows in their fur, which also aids in camouflaging the sloth in the trees.
Sloths live in the treetops almost their entire lives and only come to the ground once a week to “use the restroom." They primarily eat leaves, twigs, fruit, and flowers. They digest their food extremely slowly and one meal can take up to a month to make its way through their system.
They hang from trees using their long limbs and long curved claws. The two-toed sloth has two long nails on the forelegs and three on their hindlegs. Since they hang most of the time, their hair grows from their stomach toward their back, allowing rain to run off of them.
Sloths have a symbiotic relationship with a sloth moth that only lives on sloths. The sloth eats the algae that grows in its fur and lays its eggs in the sloth dung when the sloth descends the tree once a week to defecate.
MORE SLOTH FACTS
One trip to the ground to “use the restroom” may reduce the sloths weight at that time by up to 30%.
Two toed sloths have only five cervical vertebrae, which is unusual in mammals. Only three toed sloths and manatees share this. Most mammals have seven.
Sloths do everything hanging upside down — eating, sleeping, mating and even giving birth.
They may sleep as much as 15-20 hours per day.
Sloths really are slow: their maximum speed climbing in trees is 0.2 miles per hour (on the ground they travel at only 0.01 miles per hour).
The two-toed sloth has the lowest and most variable body temperature of any mammal, due in part to the fact that sloths can't shiver to keep warm. Depending on the weather, a sloth's temperature can range from 74F – 92F degrees. If a sloth's body temperature drops too low, the bacteria in its gut that helps it digest food can stop working and the sloth can starve to death even with a full stomach.
A sloth’s limbs are adapted to grasping and hanging, not supporting their weight. Their muscles only make up 25-30% of their body weight, whereas most mammals have a muscle mass of 40-45% of their total weight.
Females are called sows, males are boars.
The arboreal lifestyle of the two-toed and three-toed genera is an example of convergent evolution. The common ancestor of the two sloth groups dates back to 28 million years ago. Ancient sloths were mostly terrestrial, and some reached sizes that rival elephants. There was even a genus of semi-aquatic sloths that lived off the Pacific South American coast. Ground sloths in the Americas disappeared shortly after the appearance of humans, and it is believed that hunting contributed to their extinction, possibly along with climate change during the last ice age.
ABOUT THE ST. LOUIS AQUARIUM AT UNION STATION
America's newest aquarium is the centerpiece of a $187 million family entertainment complex at St. Louis Union Station in downtown St. Louis. The Aquarium and other attractions -- including the 200-foot-tall St. Louis Wheel -- are housed in the National Historic Landmark train shed at Union Station, which originally opened in 1894 as the biggest and busiest train terminal in the nation.
The 120,000-square-foot aquarium covers two stories and includes environments filled with more than a million gallons of water. Its one-of-a-kind exhibits feature more than 13,000 aquatic animals from fresh water and marine environments around the world. The aquarium brings together state-of-the-art technology, animal care, education and conservation with the excitement of aquatic creatures. The St. Louis Aquarium is known for its hands-on and high-tech interactive exhibits. It opened on December 25, 2019.