As we were traveling down a country road, our driver stopped, as he saw something in the low branches of a tree. We all got off the bus and were able to get within 3 feet of this sleepy juvenile two toed sloth! Notice the greenish tint of the fur on it's head. This is an algae that gets into the fur fibers.
I I
On the left of this picture below you can see the two toes of this sloth. Two Toed Sloths have two toes on each front foot, and three toes on each back foot, unlike their cousin, the three toed sloth who has three toes on all feet.The two toed sloth is more active during the day than the three toed sloth, however they both spend all their time up in trees eating leaves and insects. They really only come down out of the trees to "go to the bathroom". When they do this they dig a hole and bury it.
I love to see the fruits in the roadside fruit stands. Some fruit is familiar, some I've never before laid eyes upon.
This is one of the many Kapok Trees. They are enormous trees in the rainforest areas. I read the "Great Kapok Tree", by Lynne Cherry, to my second graders every year when we studied the rainforest. I read it to the whole school at DWS before leaving for this trip.
We passed banana plantations, both for Dole and Chicquita Bananas. Costa Rica is the biggest exporter of bananas to the United States.
So much fun seeing these white faced monkeys in the trees!
And these spider monkeys, as well.
Great pictures and much information to accompany the photos. I enjoyed seeing and reading this while eating my cereal with a banana (from Costa Rica?).
ReplyDelete