Thursday 8 June 2017

After a Life in Slow Motion, World's Oldest Sloth Dies

By Megan Gannon, Live Science Contributor | June 6, 2017 03:58pm ET

The world's oldest known sloth has died at 43 years of age.

Officials at the Adelaide Zoo in Australia announced that they had to euthanize a Hoffmann's two-toed sloth known as Miss C on Friday (June 2). Her quality of life had "deteriorated due to age-related health issues," zoo officials said. The sloth had reached more than double her life expectancy.

"Miss C truly was a phenomenal creature and believed to be the oldest of her kind in the world," Adelaide Zoo curator Phil Ainsley said in a statement. "The treatment Miss C required was very invasive and would likely only delay the inevitable, so the hard decision was made to humanely euthanize her."

Miss C— who was born at in the Adelaide Zoo in 1974, far from her native home in the Americas — was also the last of her kind in Australia.

"At this stage, there are no sloths left in the region, so while we would love to one day house this amazing species again, it may be some time before a sloth once again calls Adelaide Zoo, or Australia home," Ainsley said.



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