Brown-throated three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) Credit: Tauchgurke [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
One such alliance, actually an alliance between three completely unrelated species, can be found in the Amazon jungle, centred on one of the strangest and more specialised mammals, the three-toed sloth. The three-toed sloth (in fact there are four closely related species, all in the South and Central American jungles) is one of the most slowly moving mammals on Earth, spending almost all its time hanging beneath tree branches high in the canopy, eating leaves or sleeping. However, they descend from the trees to the forest floor once a week to defecate, which they do in a large pile.
Its slow speed, although conserving energy, makes it especially vulnerable to depredation by harpy eagles, jaguars and other predators, so its descent to the forest floor to defecate is all the more puzzling, placing it at additional risk when it could simply defecate in the trees where its faeces could simply drop to the forest floor.
But all this begins to come together and make sense as an alliance with other species.