Animal life in the sea and on the land . Fig. 280.—Virginia Opossum. the pouch, they sometimes curl their slender tails aroundthe strong tail of their mother, and, huddled together uponher back, they cling to her in this odd fashion as she movesabout among the branches of the 338 ANIMAL LIFE IN THE SEA AND ON THE LAND. XLIX. SLOTHS, ARMADILLOS, AND GREAT ANT-EATERS. SUB-KINGDOM, VERTEBRATA : CLASS, MAMMALIA. 1. South America the Home of the Edentata.—Australia,as we have seen, has its ornithorhynchus and its kanga-roos, and New Zealand its wingless birds. Another ex-. Fisr. 231.—Sloth
Animal life in the sea and on the land . Fig. 280.—Virginia Opossum. the pouch, they sometimes curl their slender tails aroundthe strong tail of their mother, and, huddled together uponher back, they cling to her in this odd fashion as she movesabout among the branches of the 338 ANIMAL LIFE IN THE SEA AND ON THE LAND. XLIX. SLOTHS, ARMADILLOS, AND GREAT ANT-EATERS. SUB-KINGDOM, VERTEBRATA : CLASS, MAMMALIA. 1. South America the Home of the Edentata.—Australia,as we have seen, has its ornithorhynchus and its kanga-roos, and New Zealand its wingless birds. Another ex-. Fisr. 231.—Sloth. ample of this partial distribution of animals is found inSouth America, which is exclusively the home of thesloths, armadillos, and great ant - eaters. All of these SLOTHS, ARMADILLOS, AND GREAT ANT-EATERS. 339 sluggish animals belong to the order Edentata, so calledfrom the fact of their having no true teeth. 2. The Peculiar Habits of the Sloths. — The strangestthing about the sloths is that they pass their whole lifehanging from the branches of trees with their backsdownward, as seen in the picture (Fig. 231). The struct-ure of the body is especially fitted for this peculiar posi- - mm tion, and scarcely admits of any other; so they hang thereday and night, even when asleep, trusting to the grasp oftheir strong, curved claws. 3. They feed upon the leaves and young shoots of trees,and rarely descend to the ground if they can avoid doingso. In a dense forest they can readily swing from thebranches of one tree to another in order to find a freshsupply of food; and
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectzoology, bookyear1887
