Olympic athlete
The scientific name for a three-toed sloth is Bradypus: Brady = slow and pus = feet. Not yellow fluid in this case. Sloths are collectively the slowest mammals in the world, never in a hurry to do anything they wear their name with pride. In terms of speed – on the ground they are useless, but in the trees where they’re in their element… they’re also useless. They move so slowly that algae is able to grow on their fur undisturbed by movement. Besides providing a rather fetching green tint to their otherwise unfashionable grey outfit, the algae also provides the sloth with a little extra camouflage.
Catch me if you can
They may be the slowest mammals in the world, but catching a sloth can still be a tricky affair. In Central and South America where these sloths are found, indigenous people sometimes hunt them for food. Slow they are, but weak they aren’t. The sloths grip is so strong that not only can they sleep whilst still hanging upside down, but they can also stay hanging upside down after they die. This means that if one is speared or darted (or shot) there’s a strong chance it won’t fall to the ground immediately. It can take several days for the flesh to decay enough for the locked digits to loosen their grip on the branch sufficiently for gravity to take over. By which time, the hungry hunter will have given up and found something else to eat.
An old young sloth
We know our sloth is at least 111 years old, given it came to the Horniman in 1905 with the Samuel Prout Newcombe Collection. The original specimen record described it as a young pale-throated sloth (Bradypus tridactylus), however it seems to lack the substantial markings on its facial fur characteristic of that species. Unless the sloth’s fur has faded in highly isolated patches against the laws of physics (extremely unlikely), the markings on the back and more monotone face (not meaning to bruise its ego) suggest it’s probably a juvenile of the brown-throated sloth (Bradypus variegatus).
With a good pair of glasses and some enthusiasm you can just make out the patterns on its fur in the image above. Whatever species it turns out to be, the specimen definitely has three toes and is unequivocally a sloth, so three-toed sloth is still the correct genus and an accurate title for this blog. No science lies here.
