Three-Fingered Sloth Pooping on the Ground | The Sloth Conservation Foundation

In an optimal environment with lots of trees, sloths don’t like to come down to the ground, and will only do so for one reason – to go to the bathroom. In the wild, they do this approximately once every 5 days, although in captivity they often do it more often. Fun fact – sloths can lose up to one-third of their body weight in one toilet session! No one knows why sloths come down to the ground to go to the bathroom – on the surface, this seems like a risky waste of energy when sloths’ entire lives revolve around conserving energy. Scientists have a few hypotheses why sloths might have this unusual habit, such as: by only pooping on the ground, they avoid leaving a scent trail in the trees for predators, to help the sloth moths lay eggs and find new hosts, or to use pheromones in the feces to communicate with other sloths.