Sloths, their moths, and poo

Besides my typical holiday posts, this is going to be the last post of 2014. Where did the time go?! To celebrate the end of another awesome year of parasite ecology, I’m going to finish with one of my favorite symbiont stories of the year: sloth, their moths, algae, and poo.

I bet you guys have heard about this one, because it was in the mainstream news a bunch when the paper came out. Therefore, instead of summarizing the paper for you, I’m just going to say that it’s awesome, and you can read a summary here. You can also see a cute cartoon version of the story here. And of course, the citation for the paper is below.

sloths

Reference:
Pauli JN, Mendoza JE, Steffan SA, Carey CC, Weimer PJ, and Peery MZ. 2014. A syndrome of mutualism reinforces the lifestyle of a sloth. Proceedings of the Royal Society B – Biological Sciences 281(1778): 20133006