Chicagoans visiting the Shedd Aquarium can now meet Alface, a Linné’s two-toed sloth who has been easing into her habitat behind the scenes for about a year. Alface, whose name comes from the Portuguese word for lettuce, is now making public appearances at the Shedd.
Meet Alface
Alface arrived at the Chicago aquarium from the Dallas Zoo in September 2025 and has been exploring her new habitat and building relationships with her caretakers out of the limelight over the past year. According to the Shedd, Alface eats greens, vegetables, and fruits, like sweet potatoes, grapes, and mangos.
In the sloths’ indigenous Amazon River Basin, they spend most of their lives in the tree canopy, sleeping up to 15 hours a day and digesting food very slowly. Their coarse fur keeps them warm and dry in rainy weather, but also hosts algae and insects that give their fur a green tint.
Alface is now included in a group of what the Shedd refers to as public engagement animals — such as green-winged macaws, six-banded armadillos, and a red-footed tortoise. Attendees can search for these interesting species encounters at pop-ups throughout the aquarium and at after-hours events.
Original reporting: Block Club Chicago — read the source article.
