Splash! A pygmy sloth drops out of a red mangrove tree, falling into the crystal-blue water. It starts swimming by leisurely paddling its long arms. Minutes later, the sloth reaches a nearby tree root. It slowly pulls itself up. Then the sloth begins its slow climb up to the top branches of the tree in search of its next meal.
All sloths can swim. But off the coast of Panama lives the only sloth known to swim in salt water—the pygmy sloth. Pygmy sloths are the most recently identified species of sloth. No one is sure how many there are, but there aren’t a lot. Because they are so rare, scientists didn’t determine they were a distinct species until 2001!