| Southern maned sloth | |
|---|---|
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Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Pilosa |
| Family: | Bradypodidae |
| Genus: | Bradypus |
| Species: | B. crinitus |
| Binomial name | |
| Bradypus crinitus J. E. Gray, 1850 | |
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| Southern maned sloth range | |
The southern maned sloth (Bradypus crinitus) is a three-toed sloth species.
The southern maned sloths have flatter skulls, rounder jaws, and wider cheekbones than the northern maned sloths. [1] The species has a head that looks like a coconut.
The sloth is endemic to Brazil's Atlantic Forest, a highly biodiverse region. Southern maned sloths were found in Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo. [2]
The species was discovered by John Edward Gray in 1850, but his assertions were later dismissed, with taxonomists agreeing that the specimen, that Gray described was a B. torquatus , but the new study proves that B. critinus does indeed exist. [1] The B. crinitus separated from B. torquatus in the north by more than 4 million years of evolution. [3] B.torquatus and B. crinitus are allopatrically distributed that diverged during the Early Pliocene (period of global cooling). [4]
The sloth received Gray's old name, Bradypus crinitus. [3] The name crinitus means 'hairy', referring to its coconut-like head. [5]
Xenarthra is a major clade of placental mammals native to the Americas. There are 31 living species: the anteaters, tree sloths, and armadillos. Extinct xenarthrans include the glyptodonts, pampatheres and ground sloths. Xenarthrans originated in South America during the late Paleocene about 60 million years ago. They evolved and diversified extensively in South America during the continent's long period of isolation in the early to mid Cenozoic Era. They spread to the Antilles by the early Miocene and, starting about 3 million years ago, spread to Central and North America as part of the Great American Interchange. Nearly all of the formerly abundant megafaunal xenarthrans became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene.
The Atlantic Forest is a South American forest that extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in the northeast to Rio Grande do Sul state in the south and inland as far as Paraguay and the Misiones Province of Argentina, where the region is known as Selva Misionera.
The pale-throated sloth, occasionally known as the ai, is a species of three-toed sloth that inhabits tropical rainforests in northern South America.
The maned sloth is a three-toed sloth that is native to South America. It is one of four species of three-toed sloths belonging to the suborder Xenarthra and are placental mammals. They are endemic to the Atlantic coastal rainforest of southeastern and northeastern Brazil, located in the states of Espírito Santo, Rio de Janeiro and Bahia. Each of the individuals within the species are genetically distinct with different genetic makeup.The maned sloth is listed under Vulnerable (VU) according to the IUCN Red List and have a decreasing population trend.
The brown-throated sloth is a species of three-toed sloth found in the Neotropical realm of Central and South America.
Choloepus is a genus of xenarthran mammals from Central and South America within the monotypic family Choloepodidae, consisting of two-toed sloths, sometimes also called two-fingered sloths. The two species of Choloepus, Linnaeus's two-toed sloth and Hoffmann's two-toed sloth, were formerly believed on the basis of morphological studies to be the only surviving members of the sloth family Megalonychidae, but have now been shown by molecular results to be closest to extinct ground sloths of the family Mylodontidae.
The three-toed or three-fingered sloths are arboreal neotropical mammals. They are the only members of the genus Bradypus and the family Bradypodidae. The five living species of three-toed sloths are the brown-throated sloth, the maned sloth, the pale-throated sloth, the southern maned sloth, and the pygmy three-toed sloth. In complete contrast to past morphological studies, which tended to place Bradypus as the sister group to all other folivorans, molecular studies place them nested within the sloth superfamily Megatherioidea, making them the only surviving members of that radiation.
Sloths are a Neotropical group of xenarthran mammals constituting the suborder Folivora, including the extant arboreal tree sloths and extinct terrestrial ground sloths. Noted for their slowness of movement, tree sloths spend most of their lives hanging upside down in the trees of the tropical rainforests of South America and Central America. Sloths are considered to be most closely related to anteaters, together making up the xenarthran order Pilosa.
The pygmy three-toed sloth, also known as the monk sloth or dwarf sloth, is a species of sloth in the family Bradypodidae. The species is endemic to Isla Escudo de Veraguas, a small island off the Caribbean coast of Panama. The species was first described by Robert P. Anderson of the University of Kansas and Charles O. Handley Jr., of the Smithsonian Institution in 2001. The pygmy three-toed sloth is significantly smaller than the other three members of its genus, but otherwise resembles the brown-throated three-toed sloth. According to Anderson and Handley Jr., the head-and-body length is between 48 and 53 centimetres, and the body mass ranges from 2.5 to 3.5 kg.
The rufous-capped antshrike is a species of bird in subfamily Thamnophilinae of family Thamnophilidae, the "typical antbirds". It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.
The ringed woodpecker is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in every mainland South American country except Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
The Bahia coastal forests are a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion of eastern Brazil, part of the larger Atlantic Forest region.
Torquatus, masculine, is a Latin word meaning "adorned with a neck chain or collar" and may refer to:
Augusto Ruschi Biological Reserve is a Federal biological reserve in the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil. It holds dense rainforest of the Atlantic Forest biome.
Anteaters are the four extant mammal species in the suborder Vermilingua, commonly known for eating ants and termites. The individual species have other names in English and other languages. Together with sloths, they are within the order Pilosa. The name "anteater" is also commonly applied to the aardvark, numbat, echidnas, and pangolins, although they are not closely related to them.
A large number of arthropods are associated with sloths. These include biting and blood-sucking flies such as mosquitoes and sandflies, triatomine bugs, lice, ticks and mites. The sloth’s fur forms a micro-ecozone inhabited by green algae and hundreds of insects. Sloths have a highly specific community of commensal beetles, mites and moths.
União Biological Reserve is a strictly protected biological reserve in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is home to a population of endangered golden lion tamarin.
The Rio Preto National Forest is a national forest in the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil.
Media related to Southern maned sloth at Wikimedia Commons
Data related to Southern maned sloth at Wikispecies