Had he been out in his natural Amazonian habitat, this seven-week-old Linnaeus’s two-toed sloth would have likely died from starvation after his mother suddenly stopped producing milk. Luckily for him, his home is the London Zoo, where the expert zookeepers are hand-rearing him with goat’s milk until he is old enough to eat solid food.
Edward Scissorhands, as he has been named, is expected to return to his mother healthy in a few more weeks; in the meantime, he’s learning how to hang from his mother with the help of an adorable stuffed animal. He won’t live fully independent for another two years. Then he will live out the rest of his 15- to 20-year life hanging upside down from trees eating leaves, twigs, and fruit during the six hours a day he’s not snoozing. Not bad.
Linnaeus’s sloths are not threatened, but as with all rainforest-dwelling species, conservationists are paying attention to how habitat loss will affect them. Two other sloth species are already considered threatened due to deforestation from logging activities.
