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Linnaeus’s two-toed sloth skeleton

Choloepus didactylus Bruce Museum Collection 70.09.01

Among the Bruce Museum’s many skeletal specimens, this is perhaps the most interesting. Mounted in life pose, this skeleton depicts the unusual lifestyle of sloths, which spend most of their lives hanging upside down from trees. Toe-toed sloths are solitary and nocturnal, and eat a diet composed mostly of leaves. Their long fur grows a greenish algae which helps them blend in better with their surroundings. As can be seen in this skeleton, the two-toed sloth has two fingers on each hand, but actually has three toes on each foot despite its name.

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