Cure for Cancer Finds Home in Sloth Fur

Their content smiles,squat faces, long claws, and scraggly fur make these slow-moving mammals considered one of the the laziest creatures of the animal kingdom quite a sight to behold.The Three-toed sloth lives most of its life in the trees of Central and South American rainforests. Like many inhabitants of the world’s rainforests, little is known about the role sloths play in the rainforest ecosystem. Due to their vast biodiversity, rainforests have been the source for a wide variety of new medicines, and researchers sought to uncover whether sloth hair may also contain potential new sources of drugs that could one day treat vector-borne diseases, cancer, or bacterial infections. Why look in a sloth’s fur? Their fur consists of two layers: an inner layer of fine, soft hair close to the skin, and a long outer layer of coarse hair with “cracks,” which are a breeding ground for algae and fungi to take root, some of which can only be found on the three toed sloth. In some cases, the green algae makes the sloth actually appear green, providing a rainforest camouflage.

Fungi have made substantial contributions to the pool of natural drug products since Sir Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin over 80 years ago. The overuse of antibiotics by us as a people has caused the need for us to search for alternative medicines as the war with drug resistant bacteria continues to escalate. There is currently a £10 million ($17 million) prize being be offered to anyone who believes that they can come up with a solution to the problem of drug resistant bacteria. The prize is being co-funded by the UK Government and the innovation charity Nesta, and is open to members of the general public as well as businesses and research institutions.The challenge will run over the next five years, with the specific criteria for a successful test to be worked out over the summer. Participants will then be able to submit their ideas, with the first review taking place in the fall of this year.

The biodiversity found in the rainforests of South America would seem to be a hot bed for these natural medicines the medical world seeks to cultivate. In the study, seventy-four separate fungi were obtained from the surface of coarse outer hair that were clipped from the lower back of nine three-toed sloths living in Soberania National Park, Panama, and tested for bioactivity in the lab. They discovered that the fungi could be active against Malaria, the tropical parasitic chagas disease (chagas can result in swelling, fever, diarrhea, and enlargement of the liver), and a human breast cancer cell.

Since sloths are moving around in one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world, it’s possible that they may pick up “hitchhikers” so the researchers can’t be sure how these fungi and algae came to live on the sloth fur. They may even have a symbiotic relationship with the green algae. However the fungi ended up in the fur, researchers suggest their presence in the ecosystem provides support for the role biodiversity plays both in the rainforest and potentially our daily lives. Researchers are now going to pursue the five other sloth species in order to determine if they also harbor large quantities of bioactive fungi.

This discovery brings up a key issue we face; preservation of the world’s rainforests. Panama is one of the six hotspots of biodiversity in the world, which means species are adapting faster than anywhere else on earth so there is always the possibility for new compounds that hold the secret to the cure for various diseases. Deforestation can cause several different problems when looking with an economic perspective. Deforestation around the Panama Canal is what is allowing sediment to flow into the canal’s reservoirs, which in turn allows less water to flow into the canal. The buildup of sediment drains Panama’s economic revenue because Panama depends on the productivity of the Canal as one of its major sources of revenue. The necessary dredging cost Panama is millions of dollars; this could have been avoided by implementing better watershed policies that could have preserved the now devastated forest. The forested land filters the water reducing the amount of sediment that reaches reservoirs and the canal itself. The loss of trees also means a raise in greenhouse gasses that are known to affect the climate. It has been predicted with the amount of CO2 being released in the atmosphere because of deforestation, that rain patterns will be affected and Panama will receive less rain annually.Not only is the canal a major economic contributor to Panama, it is a major contributor to countries all over the world who use the canal as a shipping lane to transport their goods.

Within four square miles of tropical rainforest, you will find 1,500 flowering plant species, 750 types of trees, and many of these plants can be helpful in combating cancer. If trees are continously chopped down and the rainforest progressively destroyed, then these possibilities are ultimately destroyed a miracle drug potentially lost to the world.

Up to 28,000 species are expected to become extinct by the next quarter of the century due to deforestation.If the current rate of deforestation continues, it will take less than 100 years to destroy all the remaining rainforests on the earth. When it comes down to it, it is crucial that we preserve our world’s rainforests. If you think about how much of an impact the rainforests actually have on our life, even if we don’t live anywhere near a rainforest, you will really see the importance of keeping them around.

The Three-Toed Sloth is considered to be endangered at this point in time and its miniature cousin the island-dwelling Pygmy Three-Toed Sloth is critically endangered. The biggest risk to them comes from the loss of habitat. Many forest locations that they call home continue to be destroyed in very large numbers. Conservation efforts are in place to help protect them and to help them increase numbers.

Sloth facts
1-Ancient ground dwelling sloths(Megatherium) could grow to be as large as an african elephant. They roamed North America and became extinct around 10,000 years ago though sightings by the native inhabitants of panama are reported up to as late as the 16th century.

2-Sloths prefer sleeping while curled into a ball in the fork of a tropical tree. They also like to sleep hanging by their claws from tree branches.

3-The only times these majestic mammals leave their tree is to use the bathroom or to take a swim.The task of defecating is a trek in of itself, they only descend from their treetop homes once a week. once they reach the forest floor, they also face more predators It’s really risky, and it’s extremely energetically taxing. Some have suggested that it’s actually an instinct to socialize with other sloths, who also descend to poop, while serving the ecosystem function of fertilizing trees after defecating, the sloth digs a hole and covers it afterwards.

4-Sloths are excellent swimmers. Like humans, they can do the breaststroke with ease. To get to the rivers for a swim, sloths will drop themselves off of branches into the water.

5-Since sloth bodies are only 25 percent muscle, they can’t shiver when they are cold to warm up. There are times of cold in the forest, though. If a female gets too cold, she is unable to digest food effectively, starving to death with a full stomach. If her young is still nursing, the young may also starve to death.

6-Three-toed sloths also have an advantage that few other mammals possess: They have extra neck vertebrae that allows them to turn their heads some 270 degrees.

7-Adolescent Sloths sometimes grab their own arms mistaking it for a tree branch and fall though the fall is rarely fatal

8-When looking for a mate, female sloths emit a blood curdling wail that can be heard for over 700 meters

9-The miniature pygmy three toed sloth is critically endangered its numbers dwindled to less than 500 in 2001, today there are now fewer than 100 left in the world.

10- Thanks to their claws and muscles, the grip of a sloth is so strong that sometimes when they die, they are found still clinging to the very branch they were lounging from when they were alive.

11-The main predators of sloths are the jaguar, the harpy eagle, and humans. The majority of recorded sloth deaths in Costa Rica are due to contact with electrical lines and poachers.

12-Infant sloths normally cling to their mothers fur, but occasionally fall off, those that survive the fall will die because the mothers prove unwilling to leave the safety of the trees to retrieve their young.

13-A sloth’s fur is also loaded with sloth moths, among other things. When a sloth poops on the ground, the adult female moths leave the mammal to lay their eggs in the feces. The eggs eventually hatch and the moth larvae feed on the waste; then, as adults, they fly up into the canopy to nestle in a sloth’s fur. Sloth experts believe that when the sloths help the moths thrive, the moths in turn help the algae grow, either by directly transporting nutrients or when they die and decay (fungi in the sloth fur break down the dead moths, producing more nutrients for the algae).

14-Sloths tongues have the unique ability to protrude from their mouths 10-12 inches
an ability that is useful for collecting leaves just out of reach, an adaptation that fits the sloth all too well.

15- There are two different types of sloths, two-toed and three-toed, and six species: Pygmy three-toed sloth, Maned sloth, Pale-throated sloth, Brown-throated sloth, Linnaeus’s two-toed sloth and the Hoffman’s two-toed sloth

16-The sloth’s taxonomic suborder is Folivora, sometimes also called Phyllophaga or Tardigrada
the first two names both mean “leaf-eaters”; derived from Latin and Greek, respectively. Names for the animals used by tribes in Ecuador include ritto, rit, and ridette, mostly forms of the word “sleep”, “eat”, and “dirty” from Tagaeri tribe of Huaorani.

17- A Sloths diet consists of leaves, twigs and buds. Because the animals don’t have incisors, they trim down leaves by smacking their firm lips together. A low metabolic rate means sloths can survive on relatively little food; it takes days for them to process what other animals can digest in a matter of hours.

18-Sloths are cute and appear to smile though they’re not primates. They’re related to anteaters and armadillos. Sloths, along with armadillos and anteaters are the oldest mammals on the American continent perhaps 60 million years old. Most species of the group are already extinct, like the Megatherium

19-On the ground the sloth can only drag itself along by its longer, stronger front legs and claws due to the sloth’s forelegs being 35% longer than hind legs forgoing ground mobility for dexterity in navigating the tree canopy.

20-Sloth from ‘The Goonies’ played in the NFL ,John Matuszak got his start as a defensive lineman for the University of Tampa where he was drafted by the Houston Oilers in the first round in 1973. He eventually moved to the Oakland Raiders and helped take the team to two Super Bowls, but he retired in 1982 He then turned to acting, racking up an impressive resume of roles in several TV shows and movies including ‘The Goonies.’