Brown-throated Sloth - Reproduction

Reproduction

Studies of the brown-throated sloth indicate that mating is most common between January and March in at least the northern parts of its range, but this may vary elsewhere. Gestation lasts at least seven months, and the single young is born fully furred and clawed. Young sloths cling to the mother's underside for five months or more, even though they are fully weaned after just four to five weeks.

The female's mammary glands do not store significant quantities of milk as most other mammals do, since the lactating infant sloth remains attached to the nipple at all times, and consumes the milk as soon as it is generated. The young begin to take solid food as early as four days after birth, initially licking particles of food from their mother's mouths. This process apparently allows them to quickly identify edible leaves, and young sloths typically have the same preferences for leaf types as their mothers.

Brown-throated sloths have lived for at least three years in captivity.

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