![]() ![]() ![]() (Most Animal Planet Live feeds are operated in partnership with or by other organizations and Atlanta’s Panda Cam is also available on its own site and other zoos have put their pandas online.) Sometimes there will be no animals visible at all, in which case there is the action of the wind in the grass to consider, or the progress of a leaf falling from a tree. For new horizons in stillness there is a sloth cam, as well, also from Zoo Atlanta. The pictures come from a recently launched Panda Cam, the latest addition to Animal Planet Live, a webcam network that also snoops on parakeets, sharks, puppies, kittens, fish, otters, hedgehogs and whatever wild animals show up at at a certain watering hole in the Mpala Research Centre and Wildlife Foundation in Kenya. Now there is another panda eating bamboo. The baby will cling tightly to its mother’s fur, and young sloths remain near their mothers for around a year.Animal Planet Live ( Abbey Road Cam (mobile app) EarthCam ( As I write, I am watching a giant panda sleep she or he (is that Lun Lun or Yang Yang?) is hugging a big rock, or the man-made simulacrum of a rock, at the Atlanta Zoo, or Zoo Atlanta as it seems to want to be called, and is utterly still except for his/her breathing. They mate generally once per year and, after a long gestation (up to 12 months), they produce a single offspring. Sloths may live around 20 years in the wild, and up to 40 in zoological settings. The claws clasp branches and are able to passively support a sleeping sloth. Each digit bears a distinctive sickle-shaped claw. The hands and feet are highly specialized, with naked, heavily calloused soles and palms, with only two digits on the forelimbs and three on the hind limbs. Like so many features of a sloth’s anatomy, the teeth are unusual in that they are cylindrical, brown, and lack enamel. The head has a flattened face with a naked and protruding snout the ears are so small that they generally are hidden by the fur. Their body length ranges from 21 to 29 inches, and they weigh 9 to 20 pounds. Their hair can become covered with blue-green algae during the rainy season, giving them a greenish appearance and helping them to blend in with their surroundings. Hoffmann’s two-toed sloths have long gray or brown hair that is oriented in the opposite direction of most mammals in this case, extending from their stomach toward the back. Their low rate of metabolism enables them to live on relatively little food, which consists entirely of leaves and fruits. The long claws are used to anchor to tree branches but also make formidable weapons if the animal is threatened. Because the sloth spends most of its time upside down, its internal organs are rotated 135 degrees toward its back. ![]() Sloths are not very social they usually keep their distance from each other without being territorial. ![]() Sloths are nocturnal, typically sleeping all day until after sunset-averaging about 15 hours asleep each day. Predators include jaguars, large snakes and harpy eagles. Although clumsy and slow on the ground, their powerful, sharp claws present a deterrent to many predators. They only leave the trees to go to another tree or to defecate. They eat, sleep, mate, and give birth in trees while hanging upside down. ![]()
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