question: Why are sloths so slow? Are they physically incapable of moving quickly? Mentally incapable of thinking about moving quickly? I just don't get it.
comment: Slow metabolism due to low calorie food source. Moving slow conserves energy and there isnt much energy to spare, so moving slow is pretty important to survival. Even their heart rate is slow. Interestingly, if they ever got into a situation where they need to swim - apparently they swim a bit faster! Think of it as the opposite of how fast animals with fast metabolisms work. A hummingbird for instance uses a lot of energy zipping around, requiring a fast metabolism to access all that energy, and eats a high energy food (essentially sugar water), which is why it is capable of this.
passages: BULLET::::- Sloths - The Sloths wear coats that make them slow. But when the coats are removed, the sloths can move fast. Sloth King and his army attacked hidden kingdom because they thought humans were cutting down trees and they thought they would have nowhere to live.
   The tamanduas are nocturnal, active at night and secreting away in hollow tree trunks and burrows abandoned by other animals during daylight hours. They can spend more than half of their time in the treetops, as much as 64%, where they forage for arboreal ants and termites. Tamanduas move rather awkwardly on the ground and are incapable of galloping like their relative, the giant anteater. Tamanduas walk on the sides on their clenched forefeet to avoid injuring their palms with their sharp claws.
   Maned sloths rarely descend from the trees because, when on a level surface, they are unable to stand and walk, only being able to drag themselves along with their front legs and claws. They travel to the ground only to defecate or to move between trees when they cannot do so through the branches. The sloth's main defenses are to stay still and to lash out with its formidable claws. It can swim well but does not move well on the ground.
  
  Section::::Life history.
   The ancient Xenarthra included a much greater variety of species than today. Ancient sloths were not arboreal but dwelled on land, and were known to reach sizes that rival those of elephants, as was the case for Megatherium.
   Sloths move only when necessary and even then very slowly. They usually move at an average speed of per minute, but can move at a marginally higher speed of , if they are in immediate danger from a predator. While they sometimes sit on top of branches, they usually eat, sleep, and even give birth hanging from branches. They sometimes remain hanging from branches even after death. On the ground, the maximum speed of sloths is per minute. Sloths are surprisingly strong swimmers and can reach speeds of per minute. They use their long arms to paddle through the water and can cross rivers and swim between islands. Sloths can reduce their already slow metabolism even further and slow their heart rate to less than a third of normal, allowing them to hold their breath underwater for up to 40 minutes.
   Section::::Characteristics.
   Section::::Behaviour and ecology.:Dietary habits.
   Adult males have a total head-body length of , with a tail about long and a weight of . Females are generally larger, measuring , and weighing . Like all other sloths, the maned sloth has very little muscle mass in comparison to other mammals its size. This reduced muscle mass allows it to hang from thin branches.
  
  Section::::Ecology and behavior.
   Section::::Behaviour and ecology.:Reproduction.
   The tamandua's small eyes afford limited vision. Instead of relying on their sense of sight, they primarily utilize their senses of smell and hearing to locate their insect prey. They use their sharp claws and powerful forearms to tear open the nest of a colony of termites and employ their elongated tongues, coated with sticky saliva, to extract the insects.
  
  Section::::Conservation.
   Northern tamanduas are mainly nocturnal, but are also often active during the day, and spend only around 40% of their time in the trees. They are active for about eight hours each day, spending the rest of the time sheltering in hollow trees. They are solitary animals, occupying home ranges of between 25 and 70 ha (62 and 170 ac). Known predators include jaguars and harpy eagles.
   BULLET::::- Delicate slender opossum, "Marmosops parvidens" LR/nt
  
  BULLET::::- Genus: "Metachirus"
  
  BULLET::::- Brown four-eyed opossum, "Metachirus nudicaudatus" LR/lc
  
  BULLET::::- Genus: "Monodelphis"
  
  BULLET::::- Sepia short-tailed opossum, "Monodelphis adusta" LR/lc
  
  BULLET::::- Emilia's short-tailed opossum, "Monodelphis emiliae" VU
  
  BULLET::::- Osgood's short-tailed opossum, "Monodelphis osgoodi" VU
  
  BULLET::::- Genus: "Philander"
  
  BULLET::::- Anderson's four-eyed opossum, "Philander andersoni" LR/lc
  
  BULLET::::- Gray four-eyed opossum, "Philander opossum" LR/lc
  
  BULLET::::- Genus: "Thylamys"
  
  BULLET::::- White-bellied fat-tailed mouse opossum, "Thylamys pallidior" LR/lc
  
  BULLET::::- Tate's fat-tailed mouse opossum, "Thylamys tatei" DD
  
  Section::::Subclass: Theria.:Infraclass: Metatheria.:Order: Paucituberculata (shrew opossums).
  
  There are six extant species of shrew opossum. They are small shrew-like marsupials confined to the Andes.
   Section::::Biology.
  
  Section::::Biology.:Morphology and anatomy.
  
  Sloths can be long and, depending on species, weigh from . Two-toed sloths are slightly larger. Sloths have long limbs and rounded heads with tiny ears. Three-toed sloths also have stubby tails about long.
  
  Sloths are unusual among mammals in not having seven cervical vertebrae. Two-toed sloths have five to seven, while three-toed sloths have eight or nine. The other mammal not having seven is the Manatee, with six.
  
  Section::::Biology.:Physiology.
   Colugos are unskilled climbers; they lack opposable thumbs and are not especially strong. They progress up trees in a series of slow hops, gripping onto the bark with their small, sharp claws. Colugos spend most of the day curled up in tree hollows or hanging inconspicuously under branches. At night, colugos spend most of their time up in the trees foraging, with gliding being used to either find another foraging tree or to find possible mates and protect territory.
   Section::::Behavior.
  
  Unlike the two-toed sloth, three-toed sloths are agile swimmers. They are still slow in trees. The offspring cling to their mother's bellies for around nine months. They cannot walk on all four limbs, so they must use their front arms and claws to drag themselves across the rainforest floor.
   BULLET::::- Subfamily: Caluromyinae
  
  BULLET::::- Genus: "Caluromys"
  
  BULLET::::- Derby's woolly opossum, "Caluromys derbianus" VU
  
  BULLET::::- Brown-eared woolly opossum, "Caluromys lanatus" LR/nt
  
  BULLET::::- Genus: "Glironia"
  
  BULLET::::- Bushy-tailed opossum, "Glironia venusta" VU
  
  BULLET::::- Subfamily: Didelphinae
  
  BULLET::::- Genus: "Chironectes"
  
  BULLET::::- Water opossum, "Chironectes minimus" LR/nt
  
  BULLET::::- Genus: "Didelphis"
  
  BULLET::::- White-eared opossum, "Didelphis albiventris" LR/lc
  
  BULLET::::- Common opossum, "Didelphis marsupialis" LR/lc
  
  BULLET::::- Genus: "Marmosa"
  
  BULLET::::- Rufous mouse opossum, "Marmosa lepida" LR/nt
  
  BULLET::::- Linnaeus's mouse opossum, "Marmosa murina" LR/lc
  
  BULLET::::- Bare-tailed woolly mouse opossum, "Marmosa regina" LR/lc
  
  BULLET::::- Robinson's mouse opossum, "Marmosa robinsoni" LR/lc
  
  BULLET::::- Red mouse opossum, "Marmosa rubra" LR/lc
  
  BULLET::::- Genus: "Marmosops"
   Aside from the color changes and visually striking beard, the two tamarins essentially have the same body structure. They are very small, compared to most other primates. Using their claws, they cling to tree branches, maintaining a consistent verticality in the jungle environment. To navigate their lush environment, which typically is in rainforests, they leap and move quickly through trees, rarely touching the forest floor.
  
  Section::::Habitat.
   Maned sloths are solitary diurnal animals, spending from 60–80% of their day asleep, with the rest more or less equally divided between feeding and travelling. Sloths sleep in crotches of trees or by dangling from branches by their legs and tucking their head in between their forelegs.
   Section::::Biology.:Reproduction.
   Section::::Extinction.
   BULLET::::- Sloth – Rodolfo's family was once rich, but is now poor. His mother, Otília, is a lazy woman and is trying to manipulate her rich brother Romeu into giving her money. Rodolfo's brother, Victor, is the only one in the family who wants to work. Rodolfo owns a small antique shop and works there to survive. Despite his lack of resources, Rodolfo lives as if he were rich. He is lazy and spends money stupidly.
   Two-toed sloths have a diverse diet of insects, carrion, fruits, leaves and small lizards, ranging over up to 140 hectares. Three-toed sloths, on the other hand, have a limited diet of leaves from only a few trees, and no mammal digests as slowly.
   Brown-throated sloths inhabit the high canopy of the forest, where they eat young leaves from a wide range of different trees. They do not travel far, with home ranges of only around , depending on the local environment. Within a typical, range, a brown-throated sloth will visit around 40 trees, and may specialise on one particular species, even spending up to 20% of its time in a single specific tree. Thus, although the species are generalists, individual sloths may feed on a relatively narrow range of leaf types.
   The majority of recorded sloth deaths in Costa Rica are due to contact with electrical lines and poachers. Their claws also provide another, unexpected deterrent to human hunters; when hanging upside-down in a tree, they are held in place by the claws themselves and often do not fall down even if shot from below.
  
  Sloths are victims of animal trafficking where they are sold as pets. However they make very poor pets as they have such a specialized ecology.
   Maned sloths are folivores, and feed exclusively on tree and liana leaves, especially "Cecropia". Although individual animals seem to prefer leaves from particular species of tree, the species as a whole is able to adapt to a wide range of tree types. Younger leaves are preferred to older, and tree leaves are preferred to liana leaves. Individual maned sloths have reported to travel over a home range of , with estimated population densities of .
  