Researchers from Swansea University working at the Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica have figured out how sloths can spend around 90 percent of their lives upside down and still be able to breathe. Unlike other mammals, sloth organs such as their kidneys, liver, stomach and bowel are all secured in place so as to not weigh down the diaphragm when they’re hanging upside down for long periods of time.
Researchers from Swansea University working at the Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica have figured out how sloths can spend around 90 percent of their lives upside down and still be able to breathe.
Unlike other mammals, sloth organs such as their kidneys, liver, stomach and bowel are all secured in place so as to not weigh down the diaphragm when they’re hanging upside down for long periods of time.
Sloths have a very slow digestion rate, taking up to a month to digest one leaf.
Also, they only relieve themselves once a week, so at times up to a third of their body weight is taken up by urine and feces.
Rebecca Cliffe, a PhD zoology researcher who worked on the study, is quoted as saying: “For a mammal that spends a significant amount of time hanging upside down, this large abdominal weight pressing down on the lungs would make breathing very costly in terms of energy, if not impossible. Sloths have solved this problem by anchoring their organs against the rib cage.”
Sloths are notorious for being the slowest mammals in the world, moving at a maximum speed of eight feet a minute, and sleeping at least ten hours a day.