Animal with cult-like adoration on brink of extinction as it struggles to adapt to changing world

An animal that has developed a cult-like following on social media is on the brink of extinction thanks to global warming and climate change, a new study has found.

Warming temperatures are having a devastating impact on Central and South America’s slow-moving, two-toed highland and lowland sloths, which are unable to adapt to a warming world.

Scientists have found that as temperatures rise in high-altitude areas such as Costa Rica, sloths must increase the amount of energy they emit or move to cooler climates.

Sloths live on a low-calorie diet, making it essential to conserve their energy, making it difficult, if not impossible, for them to use enough energy to compensate for the higher temperatures.

These cuddly creatures have skyrocketed in popularity, racking up millions of video views in recent years as clips of them in their natural habitat have gone viral.

The two-toed highland and lowland sloth found in Central and South America is on the brink of extinction

Over the past fifty years, land surface temperatures in Costa Rica have risen by 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit, and the researchers warned that if this trend continues, sloths will be extinct by the end of the century.

“Sloths are particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures because of their physiological adaptations,” the study’s lead researcher, Dr. Rebecca Cliffe, said. Newsweek.

‘They survive on an extremely low-calorie diet, so conserving energy is crucial for them.’

Sloths don’t need to consume a lot of food because they have a slow metabolism, which means it takes longer for them to digest food.

On average, sloths eat about 2.5 ounces of dry leaves per day and it takes 28 days for the animal to digest one leaf.

Without being able to consume more food, their metabolism cannot increase fast enough to keep up with the growing demands of climate change.

Their digestion rate is 24 times slower than that of other herbivores of similar size and their metabolic rate is only 40 percent of what would be expected for their body weight.

Climate change is having a negative effect on the cute animal that cannot survive in rising temperatures due to its slow energy production and inability to move to a cooler climate

Although the existence of lowland sloths is in danger, researchers at the Sloth Conservation Foundation are more concerned about the future of the highland sloths that reside in limited high-altitude areas, making it difficult to move to cooler regions.

“Unlike some species, sloths are creatures of habit, highly specialized to their habitat, and not suitable for movement to other regions,” Cliffe told Newsweek.

“If their environment becomes too hot, their survival is unlikely.”

The studypublished in the journal PeerJ Life & Environment, measured the oxygen consumption and core body temperature of the highland and lowland sloth under conditions that mimicked climate change.

Their findings suggested that while lowland sloths may be able to acclimatize to warming temperatures by moving their location to higher elevations, highland sloths may not have the same opportunities.

“Sloths are inherently limited by their slow metabolism and unique inability to effectively regulate body temperature, unlike most mammals,” Cliffe said in a press release.

‘Our research shows that sloths, especially in high-altitude areas, may not be able to survive the significant increases in temperatures forecast for 2100.’