World’s Oldest Zoo Welcomes World’s Slowest Baby

The adorable footage shows the moment a newborn two-toed sloth snuggles into its mum’s fur as visitors at the oldest zoo in the world see it for the first time.

Officials at the Schoenbrunn Zoo, located in the city of Vienna, Austria, said the furry cub arrived just ahead of World Sloth Day on Friday, 20th October.

Head of the Zoo Department Simone Haderthauer said: “Our sloths have had offspring for the 13th time. A cub was born on August 20th.

“At first it was hidden in the mother’s protective peritoneum, but now you can easily observe the little one.”

In the video, the yet-unnamed young animal can be seen lying on top of its mum’s belly as if she were a hammock.

It reportedly won’t start developing its amazing hanging skills until it turns six months old, said the zoo.

Linnaeus’s two-toed sloth (Choloepus didactylus) lives in northern South America east of the Andes and south to the central Amazon basin.

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It is categorised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a species of least concern.

Sloths’ main diet consists of leaves and buds, as they spend most of the day dozing to save energy.

The zoo said World Sloth Day created to draw attention to these amazing animals and their habitat in 2010.

Haderthauer added: “Two-toed sloths spend their lives hanging upside down in trees.

“Although they are not currently considered threatened, their habitat is continuously shrinking due to the increasing deforestation of the rainforests in South America.”