The Jay Who Came to Dinner (on a Sloth)

Kelsey Neam was strolling through the trees in Costa Rica and looking for sloths when she spotted something unusual. High on a tree branch, a three-toed sloth was eating leaves at an unhurried pace. It seemed oblivious to three brown jays that perched nearby and were watching it intently. Then one jay scooted closer and plunged its beak into the sloth's fur. Neam is a graduate student in ecology at Texas A&M University. She was in the Costa Rican cloud forests to study three-toed sloths (Bradypus variegatus) and where they live. But the interaction she stumbled upon has less to do with where sloths live, and more to do with what lives on them. The brown jay (Psilorhinus morio) seemed to be finding a meal in the sloth's fur. African oxpeckers do the same thing when they perch on the backs of rhinoceroses or zebras and pluck bugs from their ...