The world’s slowest mammal is at risk of extinction by the end of the century due to their low metabolic rate and climate change

With their permanently contented smiles, beady little sleepy eyes, and adorably fluffy babies – sloth have the ability to make any grown men swoon with delight.

Here are some funny Tumblr posts about this lazy couch-potatoes we just love. 

Here at Smithsonian Science we are celebrating Sloth Week with four little-known facts about sloths, some of which we found in the Smithsonian’s very own […]

The post Discover sloths in a whole new way! appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Size isn’t the only thing that’s small about the pygmy sloth―its population is too. But scientists at the Smithsonian say things may be looking up […]

The post Study reveals more Pygmy Sloths, But There Still Aren’t Many appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

There's so much more strangeness to sloths, our favorite slow-moving creatures, than meets the eye!

Unlike elephants, these giant ice age sloths roamed across the earth's surface in two legs around 20,000 years ago.

The twin sloths may look cute in the alternative outfits but actually it is a way of ridding their tiny bodies of the parasitic mites.

The specimens - which included 15 adults, 5 juveniles and two newborns or fetuses - were unearthed from the Tanque Loma site on the county's Santa Elena peninsula.

New archaeological evidence suggests the same black plague that decimated Europe also took its toll on sub-Saharan Africa. Host Sarah Crespi talks with Contributing Correspondent Lizzie Wade about diverse medieval sub-Saharan cities that shrank or even disappeared around the same time the plague was stalking Europe. In a second archaeological story, Meagan Cantwell talks with Gustavo Politis, professor of archaeology at the National University of Central Buenos Aires and the National University of La Plata, about new radiocarbon dates for giant ground sloth remains found in the Argentine archaeological site Campo Laborde. The team’s new dates suggest humans hunted and butchered ground sloths in the late Pleistocene, about 12,500 years ago. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy. Download the transcript (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast [Image: Ife-Sungbo Archaeological Project; Music: Jeffrey Cook]