CAPTURES, AGEING AND TRACKING
We captured individual sloths by hand from trees. Captured
sloths were classified as juveniles, subadults or adults. An individual
of either species was considered to be a juvenile if it was held
by or located immediately adjacent (i.e. the same tree) to its putative
mother. An individual was considered to be a subadult once
it was no longer observed in direct proximity of its mother and
weighed less than the minimum adult body mass. For C. hoffmanni,
females were considered adults if their body mass was
≥480 kg based on captured females known to be at least 3 years
of age [from previous captures by Vaughan et al. (2007)] and the
mass of females captured with a juvenile (Peery & Pauli 2012).
Males were considered adults if they weighed at least 450 kg
based on the masses of males assigned paternity using genetic
methods and individuals known to be at least 3 years old (Peery
& Pauli 2012). Using the same information on individuals of
known-age and reproductive histories, we considered female and
male B. variegatus weighing ≥37 and ≥38 kg, respectively, to be
adults (Pauli & Peery 2012).