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despite our voracious impact on everything from giant sloths to North american bison. And that is because of the recent huge population expansion by us and our chosen creatures.

but at the Taman Safari animal hospital in Indonesia, abandoned primates Nia and Irma have no problem snuggling with Dema and Manis month-old tigers.

collared anteater (Tamandua tetradactyla; gray brocket deer (Mazama gouazoubira; and Bison bison bison. Bison are not native to Brazil,

where we grow very high quality food in AI controlled buildings. These will recycle all nutrients

cave drawings showing armadillos birds and reptiles etched into stone thousands of years ago. Archaeologists who examined the rock art say hunter-gatherers likely created the drawings between 4000 and 10000 years ago.

In addition to human figures and geometric shapes many different kinds of animals were represented from big cats and armadillos to birds and reptiles but alas no peccaries.

In addition to the woolly mammoth mammals such as saber-toothed cats (Smilodon) giant ground sloths (Megatherium) and mastodons roamed the Earth during this period.

#Why Sloths Leave the Trees to Poop Sloths are the quintessential couch potatoes of the rainforest

Three-toed sloths descend from the trees once a week to defecate providing a breeding ground for moths that live in the animals'fur

and nourishing gardens of algae that supplement the sloths'diet new research finds. Leaving the trees burns energy

and makes sloths easy prey for predators but the benefits of a richer diet appear to be worth the perils.

Important interspecific interactions between sloths their moths and algae-#seem to be reinforcing or even dictating important aspects of sloth behavior especially their ritualized behavior of descending the tree to defecate wildlife ecologist Jonathan Pauli of the University of Wisconsin-Madison leader of the study published today (Jan 21) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society

B told Livescience in an email. Daring Duos: Photos of Unlikely Animal Friends Very few mammals are based tree herbivores.

Sloths known in Spanish as los perezosos (the lazies) have evolved adaptations to the constraints of life in the trees.

Two-toed sloths have relatively large home ranges and consume a varied diet of animal matter fruit and leaves.

By contrast three-toed sloths have limited much more ranges and eat only leaves. They have the slowest digestion rates of any mammal

We hypothesized that this behavior sustains an ecosystem in the fur of sloths which confers cryptic nutritional benefits to sloths the researchers wrote in their journal article.

Pauli and colleagues captured two-toed and three-toed sloths near San Josã Costa rica and counted the number of moths as well as the amount of nitrogen phosphorus and algae in each animal's fur.

The team also collected digested material from the sloths'forestomachs where food collects right after it's swallowed to see

whether it matched algae in the fur which would indicate the sloths were consuming it.

The researchers found more moths in the fur of three-toed sloths than in that of their two-toed relatives.

In addition the team found larger amounts of inorganic nitrogen and algae in the fur of the three-toed sloths.

The algae in the sloths'forestomachs also matched that found in their fur. When the sloths relieve themselves their insect tenants lay eggs in the dung

which later hatch and fly up to recolonize the sloths. Fungi in the sloths'environment may be decomposing dead moths fostering the growth of algae.

Or the moths may be directly transferring nutrients from the sloth dung to their fur where algae can grow.

The sloths consume the algae which is rich in fatty compounds and gives them energy. In addition to being a tasty nutritional supplement the algae may serve as camouflage against predators from above such as the Harpy eagle.

The symbiotic relationship among sloths moths and algae could explain why it's hard to keep three-toed sloths well nourished in the highly sanitized environments in captivity.

Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter and Google+.+Follow us@livescience Facebook & Google+.+Original article on Livescience L

#Marijuana vs. Alcohol: Which Is Really Worse for Your Health? The question of whether alcohol or marijuana is worse for health is being debated once again this time sparked by comments that President Barack Obama made in a recent interview with The New yorker magazine.

and debated mass extinction of large mammals such as ground sloths in North america. But the effects of this so-called Big Freeze weren't limited to North america:

#Sloth Facts: Habits, Habitat & Diet Sloths are tropical mammals that live in Central and South america.

They use their long claws to hang onto branches while they feast on the leaves that other animals can't reach.

Unfortunately for the sloth their long claws 3 to 4 inches (8 to 10 centimeters) make walking on the ground difficult so they spend most of their time in the tall trees they call home.

They are about the size of a medium-sized dog at around 23 to 27 inches (58 to 68 cm) and 17.5 to 18.75 pounds (about 8 kilograms.

Thousands of years ago sloths were much bigger according to the San diego Zoo. Ancient sloths could grow to be as large as an elephant.

They roamed North america and became extinct around 10000 years ago. Though their ancestors lived in North america modern sloths live in Central

and South america enjoying the tall trees found in rain and cloud forests. Sloths prefer sleeping

while curled into a ball in the fork of a tropical tree. They also like to sleep hanging by their claws from tree branches.

For the most part a sloth's life revolves around sleeping and eating in their tree homes. The only times these mammals leave their tree is to use the bathroom

Sloths in captivity sleep from 15 to 20 hours per day which can leave them very little time for social activities.

Sloths in the wild though sleep about as much as humans according to research by the Planck Institute for Ornithology in Starnberg Germany.

After around nine hours of sleep the sloth still doesn't make an attempt at getting friendly with others.

The closest a sloth gets to social time is sleeping in the same tree with another sloth.

Sloths mate in trees and give birth to their young in trees. Courting starts when a female yells a mating scream to let the males in the area know she is ready to mate.

Like many other mammals sloths only have one baby at a time. Baby sloths have a gestation of five to six months for some types sloths and as much as 11.5 months for others such as the Hoffman's two-toed sloth.

After they are born the babies aren't in a hurry to leave their mother. They ride around clinging to their mother's belly for several weeks after birth.

Even after they stop dangling from their mother little sloths stay by their mother's side for up to four years.

The tough leaves in a sloth's diet are difficult to digest. Sloths have a four-part stomach that slowly digests the leaves with bacteria.

It can take up to a month for a sloth to digest one meal. Their leafy diet isn't very nutritious

though so they don't get much energy from it. This may be why sloths are so slow.

The sloth's scientific name is Bradypus tridactylus. Here is its taxonomy according to the National History Museum:

The pygmy three-toed slothis on the IUCN Species Survival Commission's top 100 listof most threatened species. These tiny sloths can only be found on Escudo Island which is found off the coast of Panama.

Its scientific name Bradypus is Greek for slow feet which makes sense since it is the world's slowest animal.

It is so slow in fact that algae grows on its fur according to National geographic. The algae works to the sloth's advantage though.

The green of the algae helps the sloth blend into the trees hiding it from predators.

Compared to most mammals a sloth moves very slowly. Sloths can climb only 6 to 8 feet (1. 8 to 2. 4 meters) per minute.

Sloths are excellent swimmers. Like humans they can do the breaststroke with ease. To get to the rivers for a swim sloths will drop themselves off of branches into the water.

Since sloths bodies are only 25 percent muscle they can't shiver when they are cold to warm up.

It is a good thing they live in a tropical climate and are covered in fur. There are times of cold in the forest though.

If a female gets too cold she is unable to digest food. If her young is still nursing she may starve to death.

A sloth only has its claws for defense against predators. However its very low level of movement

and the camouflage make it difficult to notice. Nina Sen contributed to this article. Other resources:

#Most Interesting Science News articles of the WeekLove sweet love sloth potty breaks

Leopard Teeth Calf bones Found in Ruins Near Pyramids</a p>Sloths are the quintessential couch potatoes of the rainforest

Three-toed sloths descend from the trees once a week to defecate providing a breeding ground for moths that live in the animals'fur

and nourishing gardens of algae that supplement the sloths'diet new research finds. Leaving the trees burns energy

and makes sloths easy prey for predators but the benefits of a richer diet appear to be worth the perils.</

<a href=http://www. livescience. com/42744-why-sloths-leave-trees-to-poop. html target=blank>Why Sloths Leave the Trees to Poop</a p></p

They will also eat small animals such as porcupines coyotes rabbits armadillos capybaras squirrels and raccoons.

and giant anteater. The traditional way of life in the Pantanal for nearly two centuries has been ranching. Typical ranches are quite large

including woolly mammoths, giant sloths and cave bears. Within 40 000 years two-thirds of them were gone.

Jaguars, lowland tapirs, woolly spider-monkeys and giant anteaters are almost absent in Brazilian northeastern forests, which are among the most ancient and threatened tropical ecosystems on the planet.

Only three species (two small monkeys and one armadillo) are still present across the region.

For example, grouping animals according to their anatomy alone puts physically similar species such as pangolins, anteaters and aardvarks in the same tight group,

when the AI core of one of these vehicles craters in the middle of the rush-hour commute

or an armadillo and had teeth similar to modern rodents. On its heels it had a long perhaps poisonous spur like male platypuses do now.

Groggily cursing the AI that is always promised but never quite arrives I boarded the maglev train.

The big challenge is teaching the robot to adjust its behavior in real time to account for all the variation in different birds says Ai-Ping Hu senior research engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

and any of you who don't believe that fully modeling the human brain will be necessary to bring true AI to fruition are deluding yourselves (the brain is incredibly efficient).

The lab's recesses house such treasures as a sloth preserved in a vat of formaldehyde.

#Sloth Fur Might Yield New Drugssloths are cute. Take this video of baby sloths being washed:

Until today this video might represent sheer joy. But a new study causes a different reaction:

New research you see has found that chemicals excreted by microbes in sloth fur had potent activity against a host of human pathogens

The study found that chemicals isolated from fungi in three-toed sloths were deadly for parasites that cause malaria and Chagas disease (Plasmodium falciparum and Trypanosoma cruzi respectively.

The research was only a partial cataloguing of microbes that live in sloth fur which the scientists describe as a potential goldmine for drug discovery.

It's not surprising on the face of it that sloths harbor some interesting microscopic fur-friends: Cyanobacteria have been known to cover their coats coloring them green

and not exactly easy to procur for your average researcher--the three-toed sloths (Bradypus variegatus) used in this study were found in a Panamanian nature reserve.

The drawings depict an assemblage of animals including armadillos deer large cats birds and reptiles as well as humanlike figures and geometric symbols.

and the Guiana Shield harbors around 390 billion individual trees including Brazil nut chocolate and aã§ai berry trees.

and aã§ai berry--have been used and cultivated for millennia by human populations in Amazonia. There's a really interesting debate shaping up says Pitman between people who think that hyperdominant trees are common

Unlike peas beans are attacked not by pea weevils as they contain a protein called Î-amylase inhibitor (Î AI) that causes the weevils feeding on beans to starve before they cause any damage.

These results demonstrate that Î AI transgenic peas are no more allergenic than beans or non-transgenic peas in mice Dr. Epstein added.

#Whats with sloths dangerous bathroom break? Maybe hungerfor the three-toed sloth a trip to the restroom is no rest at all.

It's a long slow descent into mortal danger from the safety of home among the upper branches of the forest.

Unlike the two-toed sloth--which is shall we say less restrictive in its choice of latrine--the three-toed sloths creep down trees every eight days or so to the base of their tree.

The fastidious ritual--nearly the only reason a sloth leaves the limbs of just a few trees--may be the leading cause of death among the sloths.

and teeth of predators pouncing on sloths on or near the ground. There were historically more native large cats

A sloth on the ground is such an easy meal for them. So this risky behavior must confer some sort of advantage.

Previous explanations for the sloth's dangerous choice included communication with other sloths and a gracious gift of fertilizer to the just one or two trees a three-toed sloth calls home.

Among the fur fauna are small pyralid moths with a particular attachment to the sloth's near-weekly trip to poop on the ground.

When the sloth squats to do its business some female pyralid moths will emerge from the sloth fur to lay their eggs in the sloth's dung.

The moth larvae then eat their way out of the sloth waste emerging as moths that flutter back up into the tree overhead.

There they find a sloth and render themselves nearly flightless damaging their wings to burrow into the wet matted fur to mate

That is a lot of reliance on the sloth Pauli says. The moth is strictly dependent on the sloth in each step of its life.

because the moth provides something relatively important to the sloth. In fact Pauli's research shows that the moths may give their all to the sloth in return for nursery for larvae and shelter and mating grounds for adults.

Sloths live on the nutritional red line Pauli says. Judging from their diet--which is all leaves from the tree they live in--they shouldn't be able to maintain even the slow lifestyle that makes them

so fascinating to a lot of people. Pauli and graduate student Jorge Mendoza turned to the sloth's fur in search of another dietary contributor.

Three-toed sloths tend to appear a mottled green color thanks to algae growing in a combination of water trapped by unique cracks in the sloth's hair

and nitrogen released by fungi breaking down dead pyralid moths. More moths more nitrogen more algae (which may also provide camouflage to the treed sloths protecting them from flying predators.

And the broad team of researchers--Pauli tapped entomologists limnologists and bacteriologists--found the algae in samples taken from the stomachs of three-toed sloths.

It could be that even just small amounts of the algae makes ends meet if only because it's so rich in lipids Pauli says.

Having this highly-digestible high-fat algae could be an important input that makes the difference

It's not clear how the algae get into the sloth's stomach or how much of it they're actually consuming.

Why does the sloth poop in the woods? Maybe because it's hungry. Maybe to better hide among the leaves.

§ai led to increased weight gain. The Scandinavian berries also produced lower blood sugar levels and cholesterol.

They were divided then into groups where all except a control group were fed a type of berry--lingonberry bilberry raspberry crowberry blackberry prune blackcurrant or aã§ai berry.

The aã§ai berries on the other hand came last although they had actually been included in the study for the opposite reason--the researchers wanted to see how well the Nordic berries would do in comparison with the Brazilian'super berry'.

In our study the aã§ai berries led to weight gain and higher levels of fat in the liver said Karin Berger diabetes researcher at Lund University.

She believes that aã§ai berries are used primarily as an energy supplement in their homeland Brazil.

and Europe that aã§ai has been marketed as a'super berry'with many health benefits including weight loss.

They're building a computer model that unlike other AI projects does not mimic the brains of human, monkeys or mice.

Meats that are considered pre-Hispanic include venison, duck, boar, armadillo or a squirrel-like rodent called tepezcuintle.