{"id":571153,"date":"2026-01-20T10:17:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T13:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=571153"},"modified":"2026-01-20T10:17:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T13:17:43","slug":"sloths-die-of-heat-in-the-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/sloths-die-of-heat-in-the-amazon\/","title":{"rendered":"Sloths die of heat in the Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_571159\" style=\"max-width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright vertical\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-571159 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RPF-notas-bicho-preguica-2025-08-800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"737\" srcset=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RPF-notas-bicho-preguica-2025-08-800.jpg 800w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RPF-notas-bicho-preguica-2025-08-800-250x230.jpg 250w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RPF-notas-bicho-preguica-2025-08-800-700x645.jpg 700w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RPF-notas-bicho-preguica-2025-08-800-120x111.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"media-credits-inline\">NTCO \/ Getty Images<\/span>Poor ability to regulate body temperature makes sloths especially vulnerable during hotter periods<span class=\"media-credits\">NTCO \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Fish, tucuxi (<em>Sotalia fluviatilis<\/em>), and river dolphins (<em>Inia geoffrensis<\/em>) were not the only animals left dead on the riverbanks of the Amazon as a result of the heatwaves and extreme droughts of late 2023 and early 2024. From October to December 2023, biologists from Brazil\u2019s National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA) and the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM) found 19 dead animals in a forest fragment near Manaus. The area has been monitored since 1998 and such a high number of deaths has never before been observed in just three months. Among the dead were ten brown-throated sloths (<em>Bradypus variegatus<\/em>), four agoutis (<em>Dasyprocta <\/em>sp<em>.<\/em>), two boa constrictors (<em>Boa constrictor<\/em>), two toucans (<em>Pteroglossus <\/em>sp.), and one silky anteater (<em>Cyclopes <\/em>sp.). The high mortality rate among sloths stems from their slow movement, which makes it difficult for them to move to cooler places, and their poor capacity to regulate body temperature, which is higher than the surrounding environment. Mortality was estimated at 1.3 sloths per hectare (ha)\u2014more than half the density of living animals recorded in the same area, at 2.2 individuals per ha. Similar episodes are likely to recur, since heatwaves are becoming more intense and frequent (<em>Acta Amazonica<\/em>, June 9).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ten three-toed sloths die in Amazon heatwave","protected":false},"author":475,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1651],"tags":[224],"coauthors":[785],"class_list":["post-571153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes","tag-ecology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":571164,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571153\/revisions\/571164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571153"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=571153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}