IWN Report — Tuesday, 20 October 2026
India has no sloths at all, yet one of its best-known forest animals carries the name of one, thanks to a zoologist who guessed wrong more than two centuries ago.
International Sloth Day falls on 20 October, according to the Sloth Conservation Foundation, and the true sloths it celebrates live only in the rainforests of Central and South America. They belong to an order called Pilosa, which they share with anteaters and armadillos. India’s nearest claim to the day is the sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), a shaggy black bear found across the Indian subcontinent, including India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan.
The name goes back to 1791, when the zoologist George Shaw took the animal for a kind of sloth, called it a “bear sloth” and filed it as Bradypus ursinus, a genus of three-fingered sloths, according to Wildlife SOS. He had some grounds for the guess.
The sloth bear has long, thick, curved claws, which it uses for digging rather than climbing, and it lacks two front teeth, a gap Wildlife SOS links to its diet of termites and ants. It also hangs upside down now and then, though the organisation describes that as rare.
Scientists later worked out that the animal is a bear, in the family Ursidae, and the sloth-based scientific name was dropped. The common name stayed, with the words turned round to “sloth bear.” Across the Atlantic there is a further twist, because the most common Latin American name for a true sloth is “oso perezoso”, which translates as sloth bear.
Bear Facts
The two animals are not close relatives, and the Sloth Conservation Foundation puts their similarities down to convergent evolution. Termites and ants make up about 95 per cent of a sloth bear’s diet, according to the foundation, with fruit added during the monsoon. Wildlife SOS says its muzzle and missing front teeth work like a vacuum for sucking out termites, and that it enjoys honey.
Sloth bears sleep 10 to 14 hours a day and do not hibernate, the foundation says. Cubs cling to their mother’s back while she hunts, riding there for about nine months, and stay with her for around two years in total.
Local names listed by Wildlife SOS include Rinchh, Bhalluka and Karadi, while one of the English ones is “jungle joker”. The organisation also notes that Baloo in The Jungle Book is a sloth bear, bhalu being the Hindi word for bear.
The IUCN assessed the species in 2016 and listed it as Vulnerable, and it sits in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Wildlife SOS names poaching for traditional medicine, habitat loss and conflict with people among the threats.
IWN reported last week that sloth bears in Amrabad Tiger Reserve in Telangana may have been digging snakes out of the forest floor, which would be a first for a species known for its ant dinners (read the report).
Sources: Sloth Conservation Foundation, International Sloth Day · Sloth Conservation Foundation, Sloth vs Sloth Bear · Wildlife SOS, How Sloth Bears Got Their Name · Wildlife SOS, What Is A Sloth Bear?