Why are sloths slow? It's in their DNA | HappeningNow.news

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Why are sloths slow? It's in their DNA

Sloths are the slowest mammals on the planet, but living in dense jungles has made them notoriously difficult to study.

Source Summary Published June 9, 2026 Brief Under 1 min brief
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Summary

Sloths are the slowest mammals on the planet, but living in dense jungles has made them notoriously difficult to study. For the first time, scientists have now sequenced and analyzed the two-toed sloth genome and revealed the genetics behind its extremely slow metabolism. Building on work initiated at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) in Berlin, Germany, researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, IZW, Hospital Sírio Libanês in São Paulo, Brazil, and their collaborators sequenced and analyzed the genome of a captive two-toed sloth.

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