Slow-moving sloths will struggle to adapt quickly to climate change – new study

Conservation biologist Rebecca Cliffe fits an accelerometer backpack to a wild three-fingered sloth to measure its movement. The Sloth Conservation Foundation, CC BY-NC-ND

Sloths are more vulnerable to the rising temperatures associated with climate change than other mammals, due to their unique physiology.

In a new study, my colleagues and I found that sloths’ ability to adapt to warming temperatures varies between the cooler, high-altitude and warmer, low-altitude forests of Costa Rica.