Has anyone ever called you a sloth?

Maybe your side of the dorm wasn’t as tidy as your college roommate’s because you were too busy mastering D&D. Ergo, your roommate teased you about being a sloth.

Or (hypothetically, of course) your OCD spouse has a thing about taking Christmas lights down before NYE, while you feel Easter is a more suitable target. As a result, in social gatherings, your partner relishes pointing out your “sloth-like” tendencies.

According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, the primary definition of sloth is “unwillingness to work or make any effort.”

Simply put, it means lazy.

Sloth is also one of the Seven Deadly Sins, the others being lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, envy, and pride. It’s a pretty heavy hitter when it comes to insults!

Whether you’ve been the recipient of such name-calling or not, it was probably a temporary designation, unlike the animal, which ended up being forever maligned by ignorant humans.

Misnomer turned stereotype.

ometime around the early 17th century, some “geniuses” decided that one particular slow-moving mammal exhibited severe idleness. They promptly bestowed the “sloth” title upon it, thereby casting it into ignominy.
This phenomenon occurred across many different languages, including the Spanish “perezoso” (meaning lazy one) and the German “Faultier” (meaning lazy animal).

But the insults didn’t stop there. In 1749, French Naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon decided to pull out all the stops to describe sloths.

“Slowness, habitual pain, and stupidity are the results of this strange and bungled conformation. These sloths are the lowest form of existence. One more defect would have made their lives impossible.”
French Naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, 1749

Ouch!

As a result, sloth (the animal) has become the symbol for all who eschew labor in favor of repose.

However, while your average sloth does not win land-speed records, indolence is not part of its repertoire.
Indeed, humans are the only animals able to afford idleness. Showing signs of laziness in the wild can land you on the dinner menu.

Sloths before they were called sloths.

Long before we name-shamed them, sloths of all sizes ran, or more likely shuffled, around the Americas. Among them was Harlan’s ground sloth, which made its home in Los Angeles around twelve thousand years ago. This precursor to the modern tree sloth was approximately ten feet (3m) long and weighed around 1,500 pounds (680 kg).

An even larger sloth, Megatherium americanum, was an epic native to Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia during the Pleistocene period, which ended 11,700 years ago. This largest bipedal mammal to have roamed Earth weighed as much as 4.5 tons (4000kg). From head to tail, it measured 20 feet (6m), and fully upright had a height of 13 feet (4m)!

Unfortunately, the arrival of Homo sapiens led to a buffet of mega proportions and the ensuing demise of said enormous sloths and their ilk.

The last ground sloths managed to survive until 4,200 years ago — which makes them practically contemporaries of ours. They were initially more protected, living on Caribbean islands, but eventually, humans also populated those islands, sealing their fate.

Skirting extinction.

FORTY MILLION YEARS — that’s how long sloths have been around compared to Homo sapiens’ paltry 300,000 years.

Yet only half a dozen species survive now, all of them purely tree-dwelling, living in Central and South America.

Adding insult to injury, today’s sloths are incorrectly named based on the number of toes (claws on their hindlimbs) when the number of visible fingers (claws on their forelimbs) separates the species.
All sloths have three toes, but three-toed sloths have three fingers, while two-toed sloths have two apparent fingers. Confused yet?

Suffice it to say that the four species of three-toed sloths are quite distinctive in terms of behavior and morphology from the two species of two-toed sloths, having diverged thirty million years ago!

The most critically threatened species is the Pygmy three-toed sloth, endemic to Isla Escudo de Veraguas in the Bocas del Toro Islands, Panama. Although it has been on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species for more than a decade, its numbers continue to decline due, ironically, to the development of tourism infrastructure.

In fact, all sloths are affected by habitat destruction. Repurposing land for cattle or palm oil production strips them of homes, and encroaching roads and power lines are deadly to them.

Thankfully, there exist conservation organizations dedicated to their well-being, such as the Sloth Conservation Organization and The Sloth Institute. These drive initiatives, such as creating safe crossings for sloths to keep them off of power lines and roads, insulating electrical transformers, and planting trees.

Additionally, the Jaguar Rescue Center in Costa Rica, although named after a feline, takes in all injured or orphaned wildlife. Their focus is on rehabilitating and releasing animals back into the wild. Alas, sometimes that is not possible, as in the case of the Hoffman’s Two-toed Sloth below. Although it appears to be a baby, it is an adult that was stunted in growth, possibly due to a genetic abnormality.

You can thank sloths for your guacamole.

The giant ground sloths were among the only mammals with digestive systems large enough to process whole avocado seeds. They feasted on the avocados and dispersed the pits far and wide, thus propagating the fruit.

The sloths of today subsist on a diet of leaves, consuming no more than a hundred calories a day. This enables them to excel in energy efficiency.

If you think your metabolism is slow, pity sloths. They can take up to a month to process a single leaf! Consequently, sloths constantly carry a large amount of undigested material in their stomachs, accounting for nearly a third of their body weight. Chew on that the next time you’re sipping a margarita and chowing down on chips and guac. And remember to salute sloths!

Sloths are gripping.

Sloths can lift their entire body weight with just one arm. Their formidable, specialized muscles allow them to grip tightly enough to prevent predators, such as jaguars, from pulling them out of a tree. Additionally, their hands and feet have optimized tendons, enabling them to lock onto branches with very little energy, allowing them to sleep while suspended upside down. Sometimes, even death does not loosen their grip!

Watching the sloth below, I was momentarily worried that it would fall when it transitioned to a thinner branch that bent. Happily, it held on, and all was well.

There once was a moth who lived on a sloth…

No, it’s not a posthumous Dr. Seuss book, although it could be with that title.

Sloths have their own species of moths. That’s right, there are moths that exclusively live on sloths! And they are called, of all things, sloth moths.

These lucky moths get to luxuriate in the ultimate shag carpet, sloth fur. Algae also thrive in sloth fur, turning it into that avocado green shade (or, as I like to call it, puke green) from the 1970s. In turn, algae provide insulation, camouflage, and sunscreen for the sloths. According to one study, sloths may also obtain nutrients from the algae, and moths actually help to propagate them.

Constipation can be a good thing.

Sloths have perfected the art of constipation, descending from trees only once weekly to defecate.

Aside from their lethargic digestion, there are some other reasons for this. It requires a lot of energy to climb down and back up a tree, so it behooves them to do it as infrequently as possible (remember their daily calorie intake?). Furthermore, sloths are very vulnerable to predators on the ground, so going to the bathroom can be a life-or-death experience. No wonder they wait until the last minute!

So why even bother with these risky endeavors?

One theory is that they leave scent messages, making it easier for potential mates to bark up the right tree. Another is that the moths, which lay their eggs in the fresh sloth dung, are important enough to warrant the trek.

Now that you’re a newly minted member of the sloth fan club…

As you’ve read, sloths face formidable challenges to their survival.

Chief among these is palm oil, one of the most prominent causes of rainforest loss in Central and South America. While avoiding palm oil in products is almost impossible, you can at least become more mindful about your purchasing decisions. Goods certified by the Rainforest Alliance guarantee that the oil was not obtained through deforestation.

If you’re ever fortunate enough to visit a place with sloths, be a responsible tourist and never attempt to feed, hold, or touch a sloth. Also, avoid any wildlife attractions that promise interaction with the animals. These practices are extremely exploitative and have become rampant with the advent of social media and the rise of selfies.

Finally, check out Lucy Cooke’s entertaining TED Talk for more fascinating facts about sloths, along with many great images.

P.S. Turn the tables

The next time someone smirks at your cluttered desk or the pile of laundry on your couch, muttering “sloth” under their breath, turn the tables. Take it as a compliment, and offer them an avocado.