Anteaters, Armadillos, and Sloths in North America

Great Argus said:
Per USDA, Southwick's had 50 Linneaus's in late Sep last year, for whatever that may be worth. They have both species signed per the most recent photos. Very possible the inspector potentially overlooked Hoffmann's if there was a ton of Linneaus's.

That said - I have looked through some USDA and some other documents and as listed here there there are a massive amount of errors in sloth identification. Many zoos are flip-flopped and a fair few even have both.
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This is why I didn't look through USDA reports lol. I only used the zoo's websites, social media, news articles, and direct account from other zoochatters to get my information.
 
Chlidonias said:
The two-toed sloth species have a considerable overlap in their visual "differences", which is why there has been confusion over what is kept in US zoos (i.e. people saying "it is species X because of X reason"). They can also hybridise. Genetic tests are used to accurately determine which is which - however I'd imagine a lot of the "roadside zoos" just use whichever name came with the sloths when they got them.
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Would there be any way to tell if the sloth was hybridized without running genetic tests?
 
Chlidonias said:
The two-toed sloth species have a considerable overlap in their visual "differences", which is why there has been confusion over what is kept in US zoos (i.e. people saying "it is species X because of X reason"). They can also hybridise. Genetic tests are used to accurately determine which is which - however I'd imagine a lot of the "roadside zoos" just use whichever name came with the sloths when they got them.
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Indeed - and that is why this group sat around so long before getting a list to my understanding. Most people weren't confident in their abilities and/or didn't find it worth the work. I suspect along with a number of others many sloths in roadside places are hybrids or at the very least mislabeled.

Smaggledagle said:
This is why I didn't look through USDA reports lol. I only used the zoo's websites, social media, news articles, and direct account from other zoochatters to get my information.
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Well and USDA can be hit or miss - however according to some of the AZA documents you're still rather off in your identifications.

Smaggledagle said:
Would there be any way to tell if the sloth was hybridized without running genetic tests?
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No.
 
Great Argus said:
Indeed - and that is why this group sat around so long before getting a list to my understanding. I suspect along with a number of others many sloths in roadside places are hybrids or at the very least mislabeled.



Well and USDA can be hit or miss - however according to some of the AZA documents you're still rather off in your identifications.



No.
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If you can send me those documents I would love to see them. Also damn, that does suck.
 
Great Argus said:
Per USDA, Southwick's had 50 Linneaus's in late Sep last year, for whatever that may be worth. They have both species signed per the most recent photos. Very possible the inspector potentially overlooked Hoffmann's if there was a ton of Linneaus's.

That said - I have looked through some USDA and some other documents and as listed here there there are a massive amount of errors in sloth identification. Many zoos are flip-flopped and a fair few even have both.
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50 seems like an absurdly high number of sloths at Southwicks. On my 2021 visit, I seem to remember seeing one, maybe two, sloths. Certainly not fifty. It's possible they have more behind the scenes but fifty is an absurdly high number, lol. I wonder if it's true the zoo keeps an absurdly high number of sloths now or if USDA got the number drastically wrong.
 
Also one last note about the list

SeaQuest supposedly has southern three-banded armadillo and Linne's two-toed sloth, but they literally copy-paste the same posts on all their accounts so I do not know which facility holds them.
 
Thanks for putting together a list @Smaggledagle.

Neil chace said:
"The" adds more confusion here as well.
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Seconded. If it's capitalized that indicates it's a proper noun, and so the name of a specific place - "Florida Aquarium" being a specific aquarium, "Florida aquarium" being any aquarium in Florida. It seems trivial, but I think more people will miss it being listed down at T then will be confused about what place it is.

Great Argus said:
"The" in front of most places is a little confusing if you're not expecting it. Only exception is The Living Desert, to keep it differentiated from Living Desert.
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I know people do this, but I disagree with this exception actually; putting "The" in front of the name doesn't clarify well which one it is, and creates the same alphabetical problem. I prefer listing it as "Living Desert (California)" or something similar.

SusScrofa said:
Do you know which zoos from that list have a dedicated display for them?
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I've seen them on-display at Oklahoma City and Zooamerica, not Abilene or Living Desert. Omaha has their armadillos on display too. Don't know about the others, but I'm sure at least a few of them are on exhibit just based on probability.

Neil chace said:
I wonder if it's true the zoo keeps an absurdly high number of sloths now or if USDA got the number drastically wrong.
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I've seen a couple of typos in USDA lists before, it happens.
 
Neil chace said:
50 seems like an absurdly high number of sloths at Southwicks. On my 2021 visit, I seem to remember seeing one, maybe two, sloths. Certainly not fifty. It's possible they have more behind the scenes but fifty is an absurdly high number, lol. I wonder if it's true the zoo keeps an absurdly high number of sloths now or if USDA got the number drastically wrong.
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I thought it was absurdly high as well - very likely an incorrect entry, hence I said for what it may be worth.

Smaggledagle said:
SeaQuest supposedly has southern three-banded armadillo and Linne's two-toed sloth, but they literally copy-paste the same posts on all their accounts so I do not know which facility holds them.
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A quick search in USDA will show that Three-banded Armadillo and Two-toed Sloths are at pretty much every Seaquest location - species listed do vary though. The armadillos are all Southern, and for sloths it's a toss up. SeaQuest mammals are largely the same handful of species over and over.

Coelacanth18 said:
Correction: the species are sometimes identified wrong.
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Particularly with several species dealt with here. Though occasionally you get an off-the-wall one, like for a couple years DWA's inspector reported Long-beaked Echidnas, which changed to Short-beaked when a new inspector came in. :p
 
birdsandbats said:
More than typos, the species are often identified wildly wrong.
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Wrong, yes, but it's only been occasional that I'd see one classify an identification as wildly wrong- such as when owl-faced monkeys were claimed to be at a zoo instead of a douroculi species. Most are very reasonable misidentifications to make- such as the wrong species of two-toed sloth or an otherwise very similar species. Especially once we get into more roadside zoos and less reputable places, many zoos themselves identify animals wrong so it's no surprise the USDA will too.
 
Neil chace said:
Especially once we get into more roadside zoos and less reputable places, many zoos themselves identify animals wrong so it's no surprise the USDA will too.
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Though imo the inspectors should be experienced enough to be at least competent enough to catch blatant mistakes at the minimum. Difficult IDs like sloths and owl monkeys I can understand, but I've seen some other errors that should have been easily avoided.
 
Neil chace said:
Wrong, yes, but it's only been occasional that I'd see one classify an identification as wildly wrong- such as when owl-faced monkeys were claimed to be at a zoo instead of a douroculi species. Most are very reasonable misidentifications to make- such as the wrong species of two-toed sloth or an otherwise very similar species. Especially once we get into more roadside zoos and less reputable places, many zoos themselves identify animals wrong so it's no surprise the USDA will too.
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Some are just errors in entry, like owl-faced monkey instead of owl monkey, especially if they aren't given an actual species by the facility.



Big errors are honestly rare, and are easy to catch. Sometimes things that look like errors *aren't*, so at this point I never assume. Most smaller errors, like similar species or things like northern tamandua and mountain coati, are on the facility. If the place has paperwork saying they purchased a mountain coati, that was imported as a mountain coati, I doubt inspectors are in the position to correct them.
 
Africam Safari Puebla has both giant anteater and northern tamandua,but the latter are ambassador animals which are not always shown.
 
It’s not a big deal for me but since it matters for other people I want to bring up the fact that Santa Fe Teaching zoo’s armadillos are kept bts.
 
Minnesota should still have a juvenile Southern Tamandua bts.

Hemker has recently obtained a Giant Anteater
 
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