More endangered pygmy sloths in Panama than previously estimated

Public Release: 25-Jun-2015
More endangered pygmy sloths in Panama than previously estimated
Isolated species provides unique conservation opportunity

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

A Smithsonian scientist found that pygmy sloths wander inland in addition to inhabiting the mangrove fringes of their island refuge. He realized that the population size of the pygmy sloth was underestimated; a new, higher estimate for the number of sloths on Panama's Escudo de Veraguas Island points to how little is known about the species, and it underscores the need to conserve the sloths' isolated home.

Found only on a tiny island in the southern Caribbean, the threatened population of the pygmy three-toed sloth (Bradypus pygmaeus) does not have much room to grow. Fortunately, the world's smallest sloth species is less fussy about habitat than initially thought. Once believed to live only in the mangroves that edge Panama's Escudo de Veraguas Island, a new paper in the Journal of Mammalogy shows that the sloths also inhabit the island's forested interior. This suggests that an estimate of fewer than 500 individuals based on the most recent census of pygmy sloths -- 79 individuals counted in the mangroves -- may have fallen considerably short.

Bryson Voirin, a former fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, placed radio collars on 10 sloths in mangroves and tracked their unhurried movements at three- to six-month intervals over a period of three years. Only three sloths remained entirely within the mangroves. Five moved past the mangrove edge into other tree species, and four moved more than 200 meters inland -- quite far for a sloth. Coupled with population density estimates and extrapolated across the island's 430 hectares, Voirin reached a high-end estimate of almost 3,200 individuals.

"The actual population size is most likely somewhere between these two -- perhaps 500 to 1,500 individuals," said Voirin, a researcher at Germany's Max Planck Institute of Ornithology. "In any case, this is extremely small number for an entire species."

More:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-06/stri-mep062515.php

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