Julia McDonnell - Being a Sloth

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Table of Contents

.

Being a SLOTH

Julia McDonnell

.

.

CAN YOU

SLOTH

Being a

By Julia

McDonnell

.

Please visit our website, www. garethstevens. com. For a free color catalog of all our high-quality books, call toll free 1-800-542-2595 or fax 1-877-542-2596.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McDonnell, Julia. Being a sloth / by Julia McDonnell. p. cm. ( Can you imagine? ) Includes index. ISBN 978-1-4824-3274-9 ( pbk. ) ISBN 978-1-4824-3275-6 ( 6-pack) ISBN 978-1-4824-0099-1 ( library binding) Sloths Juvenile literature. I. McDonnell, Julia, 1979- II. Title. QL737. E2 M38 2014 dc23

First Edition

Published in 2014 by Gareth Stevens Publishing East 14th Street, Suite New York, NY 10003

Copyright 2014 Gareth Stevens Publishing

Designer: Katelyn E. Reynolds Editor: Therese Shea

Photo credits: Cover, p. Willie Davis/Shutterstock. com; cover, pp. ( background texture) AnnabelleaDesigns/ Shutterstock. com; pp. 5, ( inset) , 13, 17, 19, iStockphoto/Thinkstock. com; p. ( main) Vilainecrevette/Shutterstock. com; p. Feargus Cooney/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images; p. Hoberman Collection/Universal Images Group/Getty Images; p. ( inset) Eric Isselee/Shutterstock. com; p. ( main) Photo Researchers/Getty Images; p. Tom Brakefield/ Stockbyte/Thinkstock. com; p. Visuals Unlimited, Inc. /Andres Morya/Getty Images; p. Kjersti Joergensen/ Shutterstock. com; p. BMJ/Shutterstock. com; p. ( inset) Andy Poole/Shutterstock. com; p. ( main) MaViLa/ Flickr/Getty Images; p. Waltraud Grubitzsch/AFP/Getty Images.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer.

Printed in the United States of America

CPSIA compliance information: Batch #CW14GS: For further information contact Gareth Stevens, New York, New York at 1-800-542-2595.

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CONTENTS

Can You Hang?

Funny-Looking Animals

Giant Sloths!

Two Toes or Three?

Tree Dwellers

Life Upside Down

On the Menu

Slow but Steady

Cool Creatures

Sloth Families

A Home for Others

Facing Dangers

Looking to the Future

Glossary

For More Information

Index

Words in the glossary appear in bold type the first time they are used in the text

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Can You Hang?

Imagine living in a rainforest, spending most of your life up in the trees. You hang upside down even when eating and sleeping. You can thank the long claws on your four feet for that. Your back legs are so weak that you cant walk.

Youre very slow moving, and people use your name as another word for a lazy person. Your fur can become covered with algae. It may even have other creatures living in it. Youve just pictured yourself as a sloth!

imagine that!

Two-toed sloths are also called unau (yoo-NAW). Three-toed sloths are called ai (AH-ee).

.

Sloths are so well camouflaged that predators sometimes think theyre just part of a tree.

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FunnY-Looking animaLs

If you were a sloth, most people would think youre unusual looking. Sloths have long front legs and shorter back legs. Each toe has a hook-like claw. Their shaggy coats are shades of brown or gray. Their fur looks a bit like long hair.

Sloths round heads and flat faces hold small eyes and tiny ears, neither of which are very helpful. Sloths rely more on their short snout. They have an excellent sense of smell.

imagine that!

If a sloth has an orange or yellow patch of fur between its shoulders, its a male.

.

Some sloths have a mouth that turns up. They look like theyre always smiling!

male sloth

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giant sLotHs!

If you were a sloth, your family tree would stretch back about million years! The ancestors of todays sloths were cat-sized, tree-dwelling mammals in what is now South America. Since there were few predators that ate them, some began to live on the ground.

The ground sloths grew in size some as big as elephants! They walked on all fours and stood on their back legs to reach plants. However, giant ground sloths died out. Their smaller relatives who remained in the trees became the sloths we know.

imagine that!

The remains of ground sloths, including hair and skin, have been found in caves!

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The skeleton of a South American giant sloth shows how different they were from the sloths we see today. A giant ground sloths claws were inches (18 cm) long!

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two toes or tHree?

Most sloths are very similar. However, theyre separated into two groups based on whether they have two or three toes on their front feet. In general, the two-toed sloths are larger, faster, and nocturnal, which means theyre active at night. The three-toed sloths are smaller, slower, and active both during the day and night.

If you were a sloth and you couldnt count, look for your tail. If you can spot a small one, youre a three-toed sloth. If you dont have a tail, youre a two-toed sloth.

imagine that!

A three-toed sloth can turn its head almost all the way around!

.

Can you tell which is the two-toed sloth and which is the three-toed sloth?

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