2023-08-21 06:00:44
Deep in the Amazon rainforest, a startling encounter has been captured on video: a sloth defending its life from an ocelot attack.
Sloths are known more for their slow pace than their ability to defend themselves. They evolve at a slow, almost meditative pace, within the forests of Central and South America, calmly feeding on leaves, fruits and insects (Insectes is a French-language journal of ecology and entomology intended for a wide…). Their displacement (In geometry, a displacement is a similarity that preserves distances and angles…) is so slow that algae grows on their fur and butterflies lay their eggs there.
But this peaceful image has been turned upside down. Researchers studying primates in the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve in Ecuador have set up camera traps near an area frequented by forest animals (A forest or a forest massif is a wooded expanse, relatively dense,…) in search of nutrients.
A rare fight between a sloth and an ocelot (The ocelot (Leopardus pardalis or formerly Felis pardalis) is a wild cat that lives in…) captured on video (The video brings together all the techniques, technology, allowing the recording as well as the…). See the video (The video includes all the techniques, technology, allowing the recording as well as the…) at the end of the article.
Credit: MC Bastidas-Domínguez et al/Food Webs
Motion-triggered cameras recorded a Linnaeus two-toed sloth (Choloepus didactylus) fending off an attacking ocelot (Leopardus pardalis). Anthony Di Fiore, biologist (On other Wikimedia projects:) at the University (A university is an institution of higher learning whose objective is the…) of Texas in Austin and co-author of the study, shared his excitement about this discovery.
Mineral-rich areas are full of dangers. Tree animals must leave the safety of the trees to access these essential minerals. There, predators, such as jaguars and pumas, lie in wait for easy prey. This time, it was an ocelot, a small feline from America (America is a separate continent, to the west, from Asia and…) from the South, which was trying to make a lazy his meal.
This particular location offered exceptional visibility, unlike other often hidden areas in the region. This allowed the researchers to capture images of rare clarity.
Confrontations between ocelots and sloths have been recorded before, but they remain rare. The two animals being mainly nocturnal, this encounter in broad daylight is all the more unusual. In the video, the ocelot is seen trying to bite the sloth on the back of the neck, a classic hunting technique for this feline. But, defying expectations, the sloth frees itself from its assailant’s jaws and brandishes its long claws.
According to Di Fiore, despite tens of thousands of images and videos collected, very few show predation attempts like this. These rare sightings offer valuable insight into the behaviors of these enigmatic species.
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