The three-toed or three-fingered sloths are arboreal neotropical mammals. They are the only members of the genus Bradypus and the family Bradypodidae. The five living species of three-toed sloths are the brown-throated sloth, the maned sloth, the pale-throated sloth, the southern maned sloth, and the pygmy three-toed sloth. In complete contrast to past morphological studies, which tended to place Bradypus as the sister group to all other folivorans, molecular studies place them nested within the sloth superfamily Megatherioidea, making them the only surviving members of that radiation.
Image: Bradypus
Image: Three toed sloth range
Three-toed sloth crossing a road in Alajuela, Costa Rica
Image: Bradypus pygmaeus
The brown-throated sloth is a species of three-toed sloth found in the Neotropical realm of Central and South America.
Brown-throated sloth
Male showing black patch between shoulders
female
Feeding brown-throated sloth (Bradypus variegatus), Cahuita National Park, Costa Rica