The all new Sloth Blog!

Sloth lovers will be pleased to hear that I have just started a brand new Sloth Blog! I will post all of my research updates there (...and here) but I will also be uploading daily photos and Sloth Sanctuary stories. 

WWW.SLOTHSCIENCE.COM

The Back Patch Mystery

Sloths have many weird and mysterious behaviors that we are constantly trying to understand... Why are they so slow? Why do they come down to the ground to defecate? How long do they sleep for? These are all the common questions. The fact that male three-fingered sloths have evolved bright orange patches on their backs seems to have been completely overlooked! Considering a sloths survival strategy is camouflage, this sticks out like a neon flashing light!

Why have these bright back patches evolved? What is the benefit? Why don't females have them? Why does patch size and color differ so much between individuals? This begs so many questions that we are hoping to answer here at the Sloth Sanctuary.

We have learnt over time that male three-fingered sloths develop these patches as they reach sexual maturity at approximately 1 - 2 years old.  They are always yellow or orange in color and divided by a central black stripe with additional black markings in a pattern unique to each individual.The type of hair within the patch is completely different in texture to the rest of the sloths hair and doesn't grow any algae. Interestingly, the patch appears to be covered in an unknown oily secretion and if you touch it, the yellow/orange pigment rubs off! 

The result of rubbing the patch with a cloth:

The (infuriating) video below was posted by a man who studies sloths in Panama. They claim that if a female sloth smells the oily back patch of a male, she will produce a loud vocalization. Unfortunately this is nothing but a fairy-tale, yet another example of terrible sloth science!  

We have studied female vocalizations here at the Sloth Sanctuary and we know that they produce these screams for 10 days every month while they are in oestrus - regardless of any males present! The vocalizations attract male sloths into the area. It wouldn't make any sense for a female to scream if she was already with a mate! We did however test this theory out just to be sure - we rubbed the back patch of a wild male and held it under the noses of both a female who was in oestrus and a female who wasn't. Surprise surprise neither vocalized upon smelling the patch! Unfortunately this video is completely faked and probably explains the strange camera angle...!

 So the mystery continues. I am determined to find the reason for these big bright back patches and so have recently begun a study looking at this. Do bigger stronger males have bigger brighter patches? Does the patch size simply relate to body size? Do the patches get darker with age due to the continuous secretion of oily pigment? 

To test this, I am on a mission to find as many different male sloths as I can. Luckily as the females come into oestrus here at the Sanctuary we get an influx of testosterone fueled males from the surrounding forest. I catch them and take measurements of body size, weight, patch size, pattern and color intensity. 

We are building a male sloth back patch library!! 

If you would like to donate to fund sloth research or the sloth backpack project you can do so safely and securely through our sloth research Paypal account:

The sloth backpack solution!

I have learnt a valuable lesson this week: always have a back-up plan! We recently discovered that the 3D printer we had been planning on using to create our backpacks was 'temporarily unavailable' - not great when I only had 3 weeks back in the UK to figure this out! 

After a brief panic my lovely sister saved the day with a bright idea: my old high school, Penwortham Priory Academy, had an excellent technology department... perhaps they could help! After a quick visit it was clear that the staff at the school were up for the challenge, what a relief! (although trying to explain that I needed help making a sloth backpack without sounding absolutely crazy was difficult enough!)

By this point, I only had 3 days left before I was due to fly back to Costa Rica (armed with the backpacks...) so we had no time to waste! The technology department staff immediately began brainstorming ideas and before long, they had developed 2 winning designs.

The first is a waterproof backpack that will be used to house the original, larger Daily Diary... This design consists of an existing plastic container, modified with holes for the harness and a silicon sealed lid - tough, waterproof and functional!

The second backpack design will contain our tiny new Daily Diary and VHF transmitter. Because this is a much smaller device, we used a vacuum form machine to mold a plastic sheet into exactly the right shape.  This worked like a dream!

Of course, things couldn't just be that simple - the new Daily Diary contains a barometer which will allow us to track the height of the sloth in the tree. This feature requires a constant air supply in order to work, yet the whole backpack needs to be waterproof! To solve this dilemma, we have created a waterproof sloth backpack with a... snorkel! Essentially this is just a tiny bendy rubber tube that air can pass through but water can't.

I want to say a HUGE thank you to all the staff at Penwortham Priory Academy who made all of this possible by kindly donating their time and expertise to the project. 

Spot the difference

Natures favourite hairstyle...

The sloth backpack project - the story so far!

I want to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has donated to the project so far! We have managed to raise a whopping $1450 (£915) which has all been put to good use. 

This money, with help from Discovery Channel, has allowed us to finally buy some of the essential receiving equipment that we need in order to get started. This includes 2 VHF transmitters, a VHF receiver, antenna and all the necessary cabling!
You can read more about the sloth backpack project here.

This week I will also be battling the heavy snow and heading down to Swansea University to buy our first two Daily Diaries. Whilst there, I will also be trying to figure out a way to package these, along with the VHF transmitters and batteries, in a waterproof casing that will attach nicely onto our sloth harnesses! This might be easier said than done... our original plan to do this using a 3D printer is looking like it could be difficult... we need an emergency back up plan just in case! 

So far this includes me running around collecting all the appropriate sized plastic containers that I can find - we will try and modify them suitably in the lab this week. Who knew an ice lolly mould could potentially become a sloth tracking device!! 

I am flying back out to the Sloth Sanctuary next weekend to begin some preliminary work with this new equipment! 

Unfortunately, the project is going to need more than two tracking devices and so still needs your help! We are also hopeful to purchase automatic drop-off mechanisms in April so we can retrieve our data much more quickly -  recapturing the sloths once they are hiding at the top of a 90 foot tree wearing their expensive backpacks is going to be a whole new challenge! 

If you would like to help us buy the equipment in order to complete this project, you can do so using the PayPal donate button on this blog. Every dollar goes directly towards funding our research and it really is appreciated! 

Alternatively, if you would like to ‘Sponsor a sloth backpack’ for $800 this would purchase an entire reusable unit that we will use for the duration of this project. If you chose to do this, you will get the chance to:

• ·         Name the backpack (this will appear on the backpack itself as well as in all publications resulting from this research)
• ·         Receive acknowledgement in all scientific papers that we publish during the project.
• ·         Receive frequent updates, videos and photos from the sloth wearing your backpack throughout the 3 year study.

If you are interested in sponsoring a sloth backpack, or if you have any questions about the project, please don’t hesitate to contact me at rebeccacliffe06@gmail.com for more information. 

An interesting thought...

If everyone who visited this blog over the last 2 years donated just 1 dollar each, we would have raised enough money to fund our whole sloth research program for the next 3 years!!!

Now here is a sloth in a hammock that will brighten anyone's Monday morning

SLOTH RESEARCH FUNDING

Hello!

My name is Becky Cliffe and I am a zoologist from the UK and the sloth sanctuaries on-site researcher. I first came to the sanctuary in 2010 on a 12 month research placement through the University of Manchester, and have never looked back.

During those first 12 months here at the sanctuary, I completed the first in-depth research project into captive sloth biology, investigating factors such as food intake, activity budgets, thermoregulation and oestrus cycles in Bradypus variegatus sloths. This project has given us valuable baseline data which we are now using in order to develop and improve the sanctuaries current rehabilitation and release program. The scientific paper we produced from this project is in the process of publication so keep checking back here for updates!

Having now graduated from Manchester with a first class honours, I’m looking to the future and beginning a long-term research project on wild sloths for my PhD. This project will be completed in conjunction with Dr. Rory Wilson of Swansea University and The Sloth Sanctuary. As many of you might already know, we actually know very little about sloths and their ecology. Even the most basic knowledge such as their natural diet still remains largely a mystery - so the biggest problem for the sloth sanctuary has always been trying to conserve an animal without really knowing anything about it. As a result, we struggle to release many of the hand-raised orphans who are brought into us for help.

This project will involve tagging and monitoring the daily activity of wild sloths (Bradypus variegatus and Choloepus hoffmanni) within the extensive protected grounds of the sanctuary. To do this, we will be using a small device designed by Wilson called 'The Daily Diary'. The exciting potential that this technology holds for research has been recognized though Wilson receiving the prestigious Rolex Award for enterprise. Furthermore, these gadgets have now been recognized globally and were even used in the making of National Geographic's largest ever series 'Great Migrations'

The Daily Diaries will constantly collect information; recording for us exactly what our sloths are doing and how much energy they are expending doing it. These devices will even produce a detailed record of the environmental conditions that the sloths are experiencing throughout the course of the day!

We will be combining these little devices with VHF radio transmitters in a specially designed sloth backpack. Thankfully, the harnesses we will be using have automatic drop-off mechanisms built in so we can easily remove the backpack without having to recapture the animal – very handy since sloths don’t like to come down to the ground very much!

Through the use of these devices, we are aiming to gain a better understanding of the sloths daily behavior patterns including their diet, habitat preference and reproductive habits. Furthermore, we hope to formulate estimates for factors such as population densities and ranging patterns.

We hope that by gaining an understanding of how sloths survive in the wild, this will help us to improve our current rehabilitation program and will allow us to develop conservation strategies in order to better protect existing wild populations.

However, in order to do all of this and before we can begin, we need to raise enough funds to cover the costs of our field work and research equipment. Each ‘sloth backpack’ including a Daily Diary, VHF transmitter and harness with drop-off mechanism costs USD $800 (£500)

If you would like to donate and help us achieve this, we have set up a specific research account here. No donation is too small; every dollar is a step closer to reaching our dream!

Alternatively, if you would like to ‘Sponsor a sloth backpack’ for $800 this would purchase an entire reusable unit that we will use for the duration of this project. If you chose to do this, you will get the chance to:

• ·         Name the backpack (this will appear on the backpack itself as well as in all publications resulting from this research)
• ·         Receive acknowledgement in all scientific papers that we publish during the project.
• ·         Receive frequent updates, videos and photos from the sloth wearing your backpack throughout the 3 year study.

If you are interested in sponsoring a sloth backpack, or if you have any questions about the project, please don’t hesitate to contact me at rebeccacliffe06@gmail.com for more information.