…you need to read “The Mystery of the Sloth Poop” at Mental Floss.

Three-toed sloths leave their perches high up in the trees once a week, when they shimmy down to the ground to poop.

Two-toed sloths, meanwhile “prefer a ‘bombs away’ style of defecation,” just letting it drop.

By descending to the ground to take the kids to the pool, the three-toed sloth puts its life at catastrophic risk. Any random jaguar, or even a jaguarundi, that happened to be passing by would have an almost effortless meal. So why do it? Since three-toed sloths still exist, it obviously hasn’t proven fatal vis-à-vis natural selection, but it doesn’t seem like something they would do without a very good reason.

Scientists think they know what that reason is.

No, I’m not going to tell you. You have to go read the article. Sheesh.

Photo credit: By Stefan Laube (Tauchgurke) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.