LibGuides: Two-toed Sloths (Choloepus spp.) Fact Sheet: Diet & Feeding

Diet

Folivores or generalized herbivores — will eat leaves, twigs, buds, fruit, and occasionally rodents, and insects
Favorite trees (*indicates species favored by all species)

Feed only at night
Eat in every position. Pull a leafy branch to mouth, break it off and then hold stem between palm and claw, turning and pushing the stem forward to eat the leaves
Large thick tongue, densely covered with sharp, minute, backward-directed spines
Slow metabolic rate means they can survive on a small amount of nourishment. They are quite light weight for a mammal their size, which is helpful when harvesting leaves from long, thin branches.
Seldom drink. Moisture is obtained from plant matter and dew on leaves
Metabolic rate is only about 40 to 60% of that of other mammals this size (Gilmore 2000)
Food has low energy content — may contain poisonous compounds that require low rate of absorption for detoxification
Digestion occurs in a large 4-chambered stomach (like ruminants) but unlike ruminants who possess long intestines, the sloth intestine is short (even shorter than in carnivores)

Bacteria hydrolyze the plant cellulose
Digestion slows in lower temperatures — increased mortality has been observed in cold, rainy months (Sunquist & Montgomery)

Passage of food through gut takes 6-21 days. (Usually takes hours for other herbivores); process is similar in tortoise (Parra 1978)
Young leaves digested at highest rates. Only mature leaves of certain species can be digested quickly enough to avoid starvation
Due to its slow metabolism and high-cellulose diet, defecation and urination occur only once a week. Descends to ground to deposit mass of fecal pellets and urinate (occur simultaneously)
Weight loss due to elimination has exceeded 30% of body weight but this is exceptional

This sloth at the San Diego Zoo is using two large, blade-like front teeth to bite an apple.

Two-toed sloth only have 18 teeth—10 on top and 8 on bottom.

Gilmore (2000)
Goffart (1971)
Parra (1978)
Sunquist and Montgomery (1978)