By, Kirk Kunnen
Pilosa Facts
 Pilosa in Latin means hairy
 Contains anteaters and sloths
 Found only in the Americas today
 Central and South America
 Origins are unclear but can be traced back to South
America in the early Tertiary
• Cyclopediae
• Silky Anteater
• Myrmecophagidae
• Giant Anteater
• Northern Tamandua
• Southern Tamandua
/
 Specialized to eat ants and termites
 Jaws
 Became longer snouts
 Teeth have been reduced
 Tongues have became longer
 Spine covered
 Very strong forelimbs and claws
 For digging up termite nest and ant hills
 Opening up tree bark
 Can be used in defense against jaguars (Giant anteater)
 Walk on knuckles with claws curved under
http://animal.discovery.com/search/results.html?focus=video&query=anteaters&search
Adaptive Radiation
• Suborder Folivora
• Bradypodidae
• Pygmy Three-toed sloth
• Brown-throated Three-toed sloth
• Pale-throated Three-toed sloth
• Maned Three-toed sloth
 Megalonychidae
• Hoffman’s Two-toed sloth
• Southern Two-toed sloth
 Megatheriidae
 megatheriid ground sloths
 Mylodontidae
 Myylodontid ground sloths
 Orophodontidae
 orophodontid ground sloths
 Scelidotheriidae
 Scelidotheriid ground sloths
 Long curved claws used to hang from branches
 Slow moving
 Specialized in eating leaves
 Canine teeth have receded
 Now have ever growing peg-like molars
 Tree dwelling
 Hang upside down
 Can swim and move about on the ground if they have to
 Fur on their stomach curves to the back to shed rain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndMKTnSRsKM
 Field Metabolic Rate, Water Flux, and Food
Consumption in Three-Toed Sloths (Bradypus
variegatus)
 Kenneth Nagy and Gene Montgomery
 Study covered
 Field energy metabolism
 Water fluxes
 Efficiency of food consumption
 Barro Colorado Island, Panama Canal Zone
 Background
 Have a resting metabolic rate less than half that of a
typical placental mammal
 Move slowly
 Muscles and nerves function more slowly than typical
mammals
 The effect of these traits influence there net energetic
cost and attendant food requirements
 Methods
 Used doubly labeled water to estimate field energy
metabolism and water flux
 The decline in hydrogen isotope in a doubly labeled animal is
water flux
 The washout rates of the isotopes in a measure of CO2
production (metabolic rate)
 Food Consumption
 Fecal and stomach samples were taken
 Analyzed for manganese concentration and energy content in
order to estimate dry matter and energy assimilation
 Results
 Water influx and efflux where nearly equal
 Metabolic rates where highest in males and least in
nonreproductive females but the difference was not
significant
 Diet provides 10.4 metabolizable kJ (g dry food)^-1
Findings
 Energy Metabolism
 Aspects that contribute to low energy requirements
 Low and variable body temperature
 Behavioral thermoregulation
 Large portion of body mass as metabolically inactive material
 Heat-conserving rete mirabile in blood vessels in limbs
 Slow acting muscle and nerve fibers
 Water fluxes
 Approximate water balance
 Gets all of it’s water requirement from young and old leaves
 Energy assimilation
 Assimilation efficiency depends on the mix of leaves in the
gut
Adaptations for specific foods


Anteaters



Forelimbs and Claws
Snout and Tongue
Sloth


Live in trees
Move slow
 Have a common ancestor to armadillos
 Sloth Digestion and metabolism
 Traits that require low energy requirments
 Slow metabolism

http://www.mammalsrus.com/eutheria/pilosa/pilosa.html

Nagy, Kenneth A., and G. Gene Montgomery. "Field Metabolic Rate, Water Flux, and Food Consumption in ThreeToed Sloths (Bradypus Variegatus)." Journal of Mammalogy 61.3 (1980): 465-72. Print.
Pictures

http://www.blurtit.com/q7510327.html

http://bushwarriors.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/iucn-species-of-the-day-silky-anteater/

http://www.houstonzooblogs.org/zoo/tag/houston/page/3

http://www.anteaters.com/tamanduas/

http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/thezone/animals/life/eat5.htm

http://www.thefullwiki.org/Evidence_of_common_descent

http://www.learnanimals.com/pale-throated-three-toed-sloth/

http://animalnewsoftheworld.blogspot.com/

http://www.edgeofexistence.org/mammals/species_info.php?id=63

http://www.naturfoto-cz.de/brown-throated-three-toed-sloth:bradypus-variegatus-photo-1308.html

http://www.junglewalk.com/info/mammals-information.htm

http://www.theanimalfiles.com/mammals/anteaters_relatives/linnaeuss_two_toed_sloth.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/seabird/3076501058/

http://www.coloring-pictures.net/drawings/IceAge/Sid-ground-sloth.php

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jewing/2540054220/

http://www.nhc.ed.ac.uk/index.php?page=493.500.503