Question 22M.2.SL.TZ1.i
| Date | May 2022 | Marks available | [Maximum mark: 1] | Reference code | 22M.2.SL.TZ1.i |
| Level | SL | Paper | 2 | Time zone | TZ1 |
| Command term | State | Question number | i | Adapted from | N/A |
Three-toed sloths (Bradypus variegatus) are placental mammals that live in trees in Central and South America. They eat leaves and fruit and get almost all their water from succulent plants.
[Source: Adapted from Laube, S., 2003. Three-toed-sloth (Bradypus variegatus), Lake Gatun, Republic of Panama. [image online] Available at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bradipus#/media/File:Bradypus.jpg]Â
Three-toed sloths change their body posture in response to the temperature of their environment (ambient temperature). Researchers assessed posture on a scale from 1 to 6, with 1 being when the sloth was curled into a tight ball and 6 when it had all limbs spread. The percentage of time the sloths were observed in each position was recorded at ambient temperatures from 22 °C to 34 °C. The researchers also measured the body temperature of the sloths over the same range of ambient temperatures.
[Source: Adapted from Cliffe, R.N., Scantlebury, D.M., Kennedy, S.J., Avey-Arroyo, J., Mindich, D. and Wilson, R.P., 2018. The metabolic response of the Bradypus sloth to temperature. PeerJ, [e-journal] 6: e5600. http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5600. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.]
The daily food intake of three-toed sloths and daily ambient temperatures were monitored over a 160-day period from February to early July. The graphs show the mean results.
[Source: Cliffe et al. (2015), Sloths like it hot: ambient temperature modulates food intake in the brown-throated sloth (Bradypus variegatus). PeerJ 3:e875; DOI 10.7717/peerj.875 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.]
State one feature of the sloth that would indicate it is a mammal.
[1]
- mammals have mammary glands;
- produce milk for their offspring;
- bodies covered in hair/fur;
Characteristic must be exclusive to mammals.
If more than one answer, use the first one given.
Have hair/fur or feed young with milk were the best answers. Many students wrote "give birth to live young;" While this is true of most mammals, monotremes lay eggs. Furthermore, some other animals give birth to live young (ovoviviparous) such as some reptiles and some groups of fish. We credited only characteristics exclusive to all mammals.
