h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We've nothing on the guide on sloths. These interesting animals deserve their own Entry.

You'd think they could be bothered to write one themselves, wouldn't you?

B

Hmmm ... I'll see, maybe I can do one, or several.

It would be lovely if you could Willem.. we need more entries on animals.

Oooo... sloths - maybe with a nice illustration? Ripley, did you hear that?

*perks up his ears at the mention of sloths and looks around curiously*

How do we stand with illustration options at the moment? I would like to do several illustrations. There are modern tree sloths. Then there are the extinct ground sloths and they ranged from quite small to as large as an elephant. And then there were the marine sloths.

There are three-toed sloths and two-toed sloths, and they are totally separate species.

Hi there Gnomon! Actually there are SIX extant sloth species. Two-toed sloths and three-toed sloths constitute different FAMILIES. The two-toed sloths (Linnaeus' two-toed sloth and Hoffmann's two-toed sloth) are the only two surviving species of the Megalonychidae family which used to include giant ground-living species in the past. The three-toed sloths are four surviving species, of the Bradypodidae family, which is not known to have had any giant members in the past. Then there are four or five known families of extinct ground sloths, all of which included very large members, of which one genus (Thallasocnus) was partly aquatic.