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Meet Grizzly And Teddy, St. Augustine's Sloths

Friday a new exhibit featuring two Hoffman's two-toed sloths will be opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park.

Teddy and Grizzly will be the stars of the show as the pair – a male and a female – are released into their rainforest habitat.

Sloths are built for life in treetops, according to National Geographic, spending nearly all of their time aloft. They hang from branches with a powerful grip.

They mate and give birth while hanging in the trees, and young two-toed sloths are often seen clinging to their mothers.

Known as one of the world’s slowest mammals,  they are so sedentary that algae can grow on their coats.

Hoffman's two-toed sloths are native to South America, according to AnimalDiversity.org.

The new St. Augustine Alligator Farm exhibit joins another one in the region.  Wild Adventures Theme Park in Valdosta, Ga., also has sloths, including a new arrival. 

Bill Bortzfield can be reached at bbortzfield@wjct.org, 904-358-6349 or on Twitter at @BortzInJax.

Bill joined WJCT News in September of 2017 from The Florida Times-Union, where he served in a variety of multimedia journalism positions.