Things Are Looking Up for the World’s Smallest and Rarest Sloth!!!

http://www.care2.com/causes/things-are-looking-up-for-the-worlds-smallest-and-rarest-sloth.html

by Alicia Graef July 7, 2015 5:32 pm

The world’s smallest and rarest sloth may be doing better than scientists previously thought.

Pygmy three-toed sloths, who can only be found on Escudo de Veraguas Island off the coast of Panama, are a critically endangered species. Scientists previously estimated fewer than 500 of them existed, the last census counted only 79, but according to a new study published in the Journal of Mammalogy their numbers could potentially be as high as 3,200.

After placing radio collars on 10 sloths in mangroves and tracking their movements over a period of three years researchers found only three of them remained in the mangroves where they were thought to stay. Five of them moved past the mangrove edge into other tree species, and four moved more than 200 meters inland. Their existence inland means there may be far more than the previous estimate.

“The actual population size is most likely somewhere between these two―perhaps 500 to 1,500 individuals,” said lead author and sloth expert, Bryson Voirin with Germany’s Max Planck Institute of Ornithology. “In any case, this is extremely small number for an entire species.”



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