They are nocturnal which means they are typically only awake during the night. It's best just to look for a hairy bowling ball in the tree because they will not be moving around. There are two types of sloths - three-toed sloths and two-toed sloths. They appear slightly different, but the differences are usually only visible when you can see their claws or facial features.
I felt so special to be able to see these creatures in real life. I never would've imagined getting to actually see this animal in the wild, as I've only seen them in exhibits before.
The most surprising moment I saw a sloth was the third time. The third time I saw a sloth was when my class and I were driving in Talamanca, Limon we saw a sloth in the middle of the road. We immediately stopped the van and all got out to take pictures of this sloth in the middle of the road. We had assumed that the sloth may have been injured or fallen out of the tree. Luckily one of my professors reassured us that that was probably not the case. When sloths need to use the bathroom, rather than doing it in the tree they are sleeping in, where a predator could easily track them down. They will leave their tree to walk to another spot to poop then come back to their tree. It's likely that when my friends and I saw this sloth it was just about to go poop!
Sloths live in various parts of South and Central America. They will usually live in cloud forests, rainforests, or even mangroves. However, it is common now to see sloths not living in their natural habitat due to deforestation, or people "relocating" these species.
