An update on the physiology of two- and three-toed sloths.
نویسندگان
چکیده
Physiological and pharmacological research undertaken on sloths during the past 30 years is comprehensively reviewed. This includes the numerous studies carried out upon the respiratory and cardiovascular systems, anesthesia, blood chemistry, neuromuscular responses, the brain and spinal cord, vision, sleeping and waking, water balance and kidney function and reproduction. Similarities and differences between the physiology of sloths and that of other mammals are discussed in detail.
منابع مشابه
A molecular phylogeny of two extinct sloths.
Xenarthra (Edentata) is an extremely diverse mammalian order whose modern representatives are the armadillos, anteaters, and sloths. The phylogeny of these groups is poorly resolved. This is particularly true for the sloths (phyllophagans), originally a large and diverse group now reduced to two genera in two different families. Both morphological analyses and molecular analyses of rDNA genes o...
متن کاملA syndrome of mutualism reinforces the lifestyle of a sloth.
Arboreal herbivory is rare among mammals. The few species with this lifestyle possess unique adaptions to overcome size-related constraints on nutritional energetics. Sloths are folivores that spend most of their time resting or eating in the forest canopy. A three-toed sloth will, however, descend its tree weekly to defecate, which is risky, energetically costly and, until now, inexplicable. W...
متن کاملEvolutionary Relationships among Extinct and Extant Sloths: The Evidence of Mitogenomes and Retroviruses
Macroevolutionary trends exhibited by retroviruses are complex and not entirely understood. The sloth endogenized foamy-like retrovirus (SloEFV), which demonstrates incongruence in virus-host evolution among extant sloths (Order Folivora), has not been investigated heretofore in any extinct sloth lineages and its premodern history within folivorans is therefore unknown. Determining retroviral c...
متن کاملHigh morphological variation of vestibular system accompanies slow and infrequent locomotion in three-toed sloths.
The semicircular canals (SCs), part of the vestibular apparatus of the inner ear, are directly involved in the detection of angular motion of the head for maintaining balance, and exhibit adaptive patterns for locomotor behaviour. Consequently, they are generally believed to show low levels of intraspecific morphological variation, but few studies have investigated this assumption. On the basis...
متن کاملBradypus variegatus (Pilosa: Bradypodidae)
Bradypus variegatus Schinz, 1825 (the brown-throated three-toed sloth), is 1 of 4 extant three-toed sloths. A highcanopy folivore, B. variegatus is distributed over southern Central America and northern and central South America and is listed as Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources because of its wide distribution. Males have a middorsal spec...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید
ثبت ناماگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید
ورودعنوان ژورنال:
- Brazilian journal of medical and biological research = Revista brasileira de pesquisas medicas e biologicas
دوره 33 2 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2000