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Comment by bbarn | Hacker News Reader

Another fun fact about sloths. My wife is curator of a zoo and they have had some in the past. That slow digestion the article mentions? They probably have some of the worst smelling feces of any animal in the wild.

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Sloths are also the only land mammals that can have more than 7 cervical vertebrae. Any other mammals born with more than 7 die quickly from cancer

Hang on, what? Specifically the cancer part

Might that be another part of their predator-discouraging strategies?

I doubt they can control the smell.

Puffer fish can't control being poisonous, but it still discourages predators.

Poor example, they're not naturally poisonous, it's dietary. Palytoxin and Ciguatoxin are not endogenous, the animal first has to eat another organism containing a dinoflagellate that creates these toxins, Gambierdiscus toxicus. This quality is inherent to most reef fish, especially ones with beaks.

Begging the question, nature or nutrition.

> Poor example, they're not naturally...

So...what if the vile-smelling feces of the sloths was not "natural", but due to a variety of microorganisms which had colonized their intestines?

Like tigers can't control their coat color or stripe pattern, but it has an evolutionary advantage so these traits persist.

Probably not, sloths only poop on the ground, which makes them vulnerable. Related post from the site: https://slothconservation.org/why-do-sloths-poop-on-the-grou...

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