Manuel Antonio National Park, Pacific Coast of Costa Rica
Every morning my fellow naturalists and I gather to decide upon which option to lead. When we decided I would be leading the interpretive walk on the trail named “Sloth Valley Trail,” I assumed they were exaggerating a little bit with that name that suggested an abundance of an animal that is famously hard to spot and consequently, is not very well understood.
As a result I was astounded when just 15 minutes and 300 meters into my walk we had already discovered 6 individual sloths, with representatives of both species that inhabit Central America.
The beautiful female sloth in the picture is a three-toed sloth, easily found in Manuel Antonio National Park, a 1200-hectare preserve that is the smallest but most famous national park in Costa Rica.
This slow-moving animal has evolved to survive the tough conditions of the tropical rainforest, with the very small amount of energy that its diet of young green leaves and some fruits can provide.
Even so, sloths are the most important link in a whole chain of life in the tropical rainforest, since they represent two thirds of all the biomass and half the energy consumption of all terrestrial mammals, as found in a study area in Panama.
Their impacts on the nutrient cycle cannot be compared with that of any other mammal within their range.
Slowly but surely, sloths are keeping natural areas such as Manuel Antonio and other national parks in Panama and Costa Rica in the shiniest and healthiest of the green colors afforded by tropical rainforests.
Every morning my fellow naturalists and I gather to decide upon which option to lead. When we decided I would be leading the interpretive walk on the trail named “Sloth Valley Trail,” I assumed they were exaggerating a little bit with that name that suggested an abundance of an animal that is famously hard to spot and consequently, is not very well understood.
As a result I was astounded when just 15 minutes and 300 meters into my walk we had already discovered 6 individual sloths, with representatives of both species that inhabit Central America.
The beautiful female sloth in the picture is a three-toed sloth, easily found in Manuel Antonio National Park, a 1200-hectare preserve that is the smallest but most famous national park in Costa Rica.
This slow-moving animal has evolved to survive the tough conditions of the tropical rainforest, with the very small amount of energy that its diet of young green leaves and some fruits can provide.
Even so, sloths are the most important link in a whole chain of life in the tropical rainforest, since they represent two thirds of all the biomass and half the energy consumption of all terrestrial mammals, as found in a study area in Panama.
Their impacts on the nutrient cycle cannot be compared with that of any other mammal within their range.
Slowly but surely, sloths are keeping natural areas such as Manuel Antonio and other national parks in Panama and Costa Rica in the shiniest and healthiest of the green colors afforded by tropical rainforests.
