{"id":470457,"date":"2026-06-10T16:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T16:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/470457\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T16:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T16:09:10","slug":"secret-to-sloths-slow-life-may-lie-in-ancient-jumping-genes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/470457\/","title":{"rendered":"Secret to Sloths\u2019 Slow Life May Lie in Ancient \u2018Jumping Genes\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Along with armadillos and anteaters, sloths are members of Xenarthra, the only clade of placental mammals to have originated in South America. In new research, scientists sequenced and analyzed chromosome-level genomes of the Linnaeus\u2019s two-toed sloth (Choloepus didactylus)<\/a> and the southern anteater (Tamandua tetradactyla)<\/a>. They identified unusual genetic elements tied to energy production in the sloths, offering clues to how these animals evolved the slowest metabolism of any mammal.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Linnaeus\u2019s two-toed sloth (Choloepus didactylus) at London Zoo. Image credit: Dick Culbert \/ CC BY 2.0.<\/p>\n

Xenarthrans have been around for 65.5 million years, with extinct sloth ancestors including elephant-sized ground sloths.<\/p>\n

Now, modern-day sloths are all tree-dwelling and belong to two groups: two-toed sloths and three-toed sloths.<\/p>\n

They spend most of their time in the trees where they hang motionless and camouflaged, and when they do move between branches to feed on leaves and fruits \u2014 it all happens at a slow pace.<\/p>\n

They have the lowest metabolism among mammals, often less than half of what is expected for their body size.<\/p>\n

To conserve energy, they can switch between self-regulating their body temperature, and allowing it to fluctuate with the environment.<\/p>\n

While being slow, they are strong swimmers, sometimes covering large distances in water when searching for a mate.<\/p>\n

To gain a deeper understanding of the unusual biology of sloths, Wellcome Sanger Institute researcher Marcela Uliano-Silva and her colleagues turned to genomics.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvolution has already run billions of experiments,\u201d Dr. Uliano-Silva said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy studying unusual animals like sloths, we sometimes uncover biological solutions that humans never evolved.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing genomics to look back through time, we found \u2018jumping genes\u2019 that sloths have conserved over millions of years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese sloth-specific genes are linked to mitochondria and metabolic pathways, suggesting they might be related to the evolution of their extremely slow metabolism.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the study, the authors sequenced and analyzed the genome of the Linnaeus\u2019s two-toed sloth and the southern anteater.<\/p>\n

They found that the sloth genome had several copies of active transposable elements, called \u2018transposons\u2019 or \u2018jumping genes,\u2019 which are DNA sequences that can copy and paste themselves to change their position in the genome.<\/p>\n

By using genomics to look back through time and map the evolution of sloths, they found these \u2018jumping genes\u2019 arose in the last common ancestor of all living sloth species around 30 million years ago.<\/p>\n

The genes have since been conserved over time, making them ingrained genetic sequences that are unique to sloths.<\/p>\n

The researchers were surprised to find that many of these genes are connected to mitochondria \u2014 the \u2018power houses\u2019 of cells that generate their energy \u2014 and metabolic pathways.<\/p>\n

Since sloths have one of the most unique metabolisms among mammals, they believe that these sloth-specific genes are related to their unusual adaptations to the environment and evolution of their extremely slow metabolism.<\/p>\n

\u201cSloths have the slowest metabolism of any mammal, yet they remain healthy,\u201d said Dr. Camila Mazzoni, a researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and the Berlin Center for Genomics in Biodiversity Research.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnderstanding how they achieve this may reveal new insights into how cells manage energy efficiently.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur findings suggest that sloths might have evolved genetic \u2018backup systems\u2019 that help compensate for their \u2018relaxed mitochondria\u2019 and support their unique lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMany human conditions \u2014 including diabetes, aging-related disorders, neurodegeneration, and muscle wasting \u2014 involve problems with energy production and mitochondrial function,\u201d said Dr. Pedro Galante, a researcher at the Hospital S\u00edrio Liban\u00eas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile further research is needed, sloth cell lines may offer a natural model for understanding how organisms cope with low-energy states, and what goes wrong in disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the long term, this could inform research into tissue preservation, critical care medicine, aging, metabolic disease, and even long-duration space travel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study<\/a> was published in the journal BMC Biology.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

M. Uliano-Silva et al. Elevated retrocopy burden and sloth-specific expansions illuminate mammalian genome evolution. BMC Biol, published online May 19, 2026; doi: 10.1186\/s12915-026-02632-5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Along with armadillos and anteaters, sloths are members of Xenarthra, the only clade of placental mammals to have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[237867,237868,237869,14452,55,6567,4640,6243,237870,237871,25080,4690,6010,111,139,69,237872,147,237157,237873,237874,237875,176617,237876],"class_list":["post-470457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-anteater","tag-choloepus","tag-choloepus-didactylus","tag-chromosome","tag-dna","tag-evolution","tag-gene","tag-genome","tag-jumping-gene","tag-linnaeuss-two-toed-sloth","tag-mammal","tag-metabolism","tag-mitochondria","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-retrotransposon","tag-science","tag-sloth","tag-southern-anteater","tag-tamandua","tag-tamandua-tetradactyla","tag-transposon","tag-xenarthra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}