Sloth gives birth in front of stunned guests at Minnesota zoo. See the baby
Zoo guests in Minnesota were the surprise witnesses to the birth of a baby sloth, one even the zoo staff didn’t see coming.
Como Park Zoo & Conservatory in St. Paul announced its 6-year-old Hoffman’s two-toed sloth, Sago, gave birth in her exhibit on April 2 in the middle of a normal day at the zoo.
“We couldn’t have planned a more exciting experience for our guests yesterday,” Senior Zookeeper Jill Erzar said in a news release. “It’s not every day you get to see a sloth being born right in front of you. It was a truly special moment, and Sago is already proving to be a fantastic first-time mom.”
After giving birth, she ”immediately began cleaning her baby,” according to the zoo.
Sago came to the zoo in 2023, the same year the baby’s father, Ziggy, joined the exhibit. The first-time parents live in the primate section of the zoo.
“Right now, we’re just enjoying watching the baby bond with Sago,” Erzar said. “It will be a while before we know if we have a little boy or girl, but for now, we’re focused on making sure both mom and baby are thriving.”
Sloth mothers will care for their young for about the first year of their lives. Babies spend the first six months of their lives instinctively clinging to their mothers.
“Unlike most female mammals, sloths do not produce large stores of milk for the baby, because that requires significant energy stores that sloths do not have,” Pierella Rainforest Reclamation Project says. “The model of efficiency, the mother produces milk as needed by the infant, which feeds very frequently.”
As it turns out, it’s easy to miss when a sloth is expecting. Something similar happened at the Hattiesburg Zoo in 2018 when Mo, short for Molasses, gave birth to a baby named Maple, surprising the staff, according to the Hattiesburg American.
“Due to sloths’ abundant coarse fur and physique adapted for hanging upside down in trees, it is extremely difficult to notice any outward signs of pregnancy,” the zoo said in a news release. “This combined with sloths’ very sedentary lifestyle and long sleep periods makes sloth pregnancy nearly impossible to detect.”
This story was originally published April 4, 2025 at 1:42 PM with the headline "Sloth gives birth in front of stunned guests at Minnesota zoo. See the baby."
