sloths
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Unlike most mammals living in the warm, humid tropical forests, sloths also have adaptations to stay warm! They are covered in dense hair-like fur. This fur also serves as effective camouflage, because each individual hair contains a groove which holds blue-green algae. Sloths are not social mammals, and indeed seem to communicate very little with one another. Their main vocalizations are whistle-like sounds, but these are not often heard, perhaps because sloths avoid any behavior that could attract attention to themselves.
During the rainy season, this algae population in a sloth's fur multiplies, giving the sloth a mossy-green color; in the dry season, there is less algae and the sloths turn a more brownish color. In the mornings, sloths can be found hanging from branches high in the forest canopy, sunbathing. Sloths sleep in compact, ball-like positions to conserve heat.
Once spotted by a predator, sloths have few defenses -- certainly they can't escape with any speed! A sloth's sharp claws do offer some protection however, and since they spend most of their time out on thin branches, they are usually out of reach of most predators.

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[tropical rainforests] [camouflage] [seasons]

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