Newborn brown-throated sloth with mother, Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica

© Suzi Eszterhas/Minden Picture

Hello, World!. New beginnings

While we’re slowly starting to feel the cold, on the other side of the globe, spring is in full swing - the season when many baby animals are born. The rainy, warmer days bring new plant growth, which means nursing and foraging mums can provide their newborns with larger amounts of higher-quality food. It also maximises the ‘growing season’ for spring babies, giving them time to increase in size and put on fat before the winter arrives.But consider our brown-throated sloth baby (yes, a newborn sloth is called a baby), which breaks all those rules. That’s because these sloths live in the Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica, which is just north of the equator, where the change in seasons isn’t as pronounced as in the higher latitudes. Here in the rainforest, there are lots of tough, rubbery leaves for the young sloth to eat year-round. And even though the baby sloth will be fully weaned from its mother after just a few weeks, it will continue to cling to her fur for five months or more.