Sloths aren't the picky eaters we thought they were. When their favorite food isn't available, they will try something else.

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Face to face with the sloth.
Parkol / shutterstock
▼ Unless you live in the tropical rainforests of South or Central America, most of the sloths you’ll encounter will be two-toed sloths. This is because they are able to eat quite a varied dietand are therefore relatively easy to keep in captivity. Their relatives, the three-toed sloths, on the other hand, have a very restricted diet, subsisting solely onCecropia: a group of fast-growing tree species with soft wood and large, juicy leaves.
Or so it has always been thought. A paper published today by the Royal Societygives quite a different picture of the lifestyle of three-toed sloths.
The authors of the paper looked at how the availability of different tree species, including those of the genusCecropia, affected the survival and reproduction rates of sloths. Given that these trees are the sloths’ favorite food, this specialist sloth species might be expected to spend most of its time in them. However, the authors found that at certain life stages, sloths may desert their favored tree for other species.
Density ofCecropiais critical to the survival and reproductive success of adults, especially the males, but was not correlated with survival rates of juveniles. The authors attribute the differing importance ofCecropiaat different life stages to the shape and growth habits of the tree, and they give a detailed analysis of its effects.

Cecropiatrees grow quickly to fill any gaps in the forest canopy.
Wagner Campelo / shutterstock
BecauseCecropiaspecies grow fast and produce lots of leaves with few chemical defensesrather than a few leaves that are defended by a lot of toxins, there are always young, palatable, easily-digestible leaves available for adult sloths. The leaves also contain essential nutrients that keep sloths in good health, which would suggest that juveniles should also favour them.
Cecropiafoliage consists of a fan of large leaves at the end of a long stem or branch with no other leaves on it, giving it an “open structure”.  (▪ ▪ ▪)

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