Museum Notebook: The slow and smiley sloth

Three-toed sloth: This 52cm tall specimen was collected by Whanganui Regional Museum founder Samuel Drew in the late 19th century. It was recently on display in their popular exhibition, Teeth Talons & Taxidermy. Photo / Kathy Greensides

Sloths are a very popular animal at the moment. From film and television to T-shirts and stationery, we can find them everywhere.

Their popularity is mostly due to social media trends. Sloths began trending online around 2012 as celebrities filmed encounters with them, followed by videos reposted on YouTube, Instagram, and other social media platforms. Today, there are several channels on these platforms devoted to sharing sloth pictures, videos, and memes.

Google Trends also reveals that the search term ‘sloth’ skyrocketed during the 2010s and is still a popular term globally. So why did sloths capture our hearts?

First, we love something cute, and a furry creature with what appears to be a permanent smile certainly fits that category. There are six species of sloths, each growing to a cuddly 60-80cm tall and weighing 3.6-7.7kg. The two two-toed sloth species are slightly larger and spend more time hanging upside-down, while four three-toed sloth species prefer sitting in forked branches.

Sloths are covered with shaggy fur and resemble a monkey but are actually related to the armadillo and anteater. They have a dense undercoat of short black fur to keep warm, and a longer outercoat of brown fur to help with camouflage. Three-toed sloths have facial markings which make them look like they are smiling. In another internet trend, their small, furry, round heads have earned them the alternative name of ‘sentient coconut’.

Two-toed sloth: This illustration of a two-toed sloth appears in Volume XXII of the 1902 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica held in the Whanganui Regional Museum's collection. Photo / Sandi Black

Another reason we love them is because we have a weakness for underdogs. These creatures have a lot stacked against them. Sloths have poor eyesight and hearing, and therefore few defence mechanisms. Their thick skin helps to prevent damage from attack but aside from a high-pitched shriek they rely on their claws and bite to defend themselves.

Sloths are famously slow, only travelling around 36 metres a day. They are so slow moss and algae grow on their fur, but these additions double as camouflage while in the treetops. Movement depletes their energy and mothers will often not even spend their precious calories to collect an infant that has fallen to the rainforest floor.

Sloth metabolism is so slow they only defecate once a week. This is usually the only time they will leave the canopy as the only way they can move on the ground is by dragging themselves with their claws, leaving them open to attack. They are, however, incredible swimmers if they should fall in water.

We also love something that’s good for the environment. As well as being an important part of the tropical rainforest ecosystem, sloth fur is home to its own ecological community of beetles, worms, and other bugs that eat the algae collecting on it.

Sloths were not always viewed with such affection. Spanish colonist Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Vladés (1478-1557) made the first written record of sloths. He declared sloths were “the stupidest animal that can be found in the world”, and that he had “never seen such an ugly animal or one that is more useless”.

It is lucky that these animals are a fixture on social media, as studies have proven that popular animals receive more money for conservation efforts. The sloth is the national animal of Costa Rica, which has a sanctuary and orphanage helping in the fight to save the species we can’t get enough of.

■ Sandi Black is the Kaihāpai Kōrero/Archivist at Whanganui Regional Museum