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

© Suzi Eszterhas/Minden Picture

Hello, World!. New beginnings

Spring means more than just April showers and May flowers. It's also the season when many baby animals are born. The rainy, warmer days bring new plant growth, which means nursing and foraging moms can provide their newborns with larger amounts of higher-quality food. It also maximizes the 'growing season' for spring babies, giving them time to increase in size and put on fat before winter arrives.But consider our brown-throated sloth baby (and yes, a newborn sloth is called a baby). It was probably born sometime in late summer, not spring. 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 its mother’s fur for five months or more.