Janet Lillicoth, age 11, of Los Angeles, CA
Can a sloth walk?
In pictures, the shaggy sloth is usually shown hanging from a branch by his four feet. Maybe you have seen this old lazybones in a zoo. Chances are, he was hanging from a branch. You may have watched a long, long time and wondered when in the world the sleepy fellow would move, Notice that he holds on with strong hooked claws. There may be two or three claws on each foot, depending upon whether he is a two‑toed sloth or a three‑toed sloth. Mr. Three Toes is not quite so lazy as his cousin and if you wait long enough, you may get a chance to see him move.
In the resting position, where he is most of the time, the sloth holds his long neck up and puts his shaggy round head near his front legs. His small, round eyes may be closed and his small, round ears are buried in a forest of long, shaggy hair. When he gets ready to move, his eyes willopen and he will move his head down. Now he sees the world upside down.
Slowly, slowly: one foot will be unhooked then re‑hooked a little farther ahead, Mr, Sloth is taking a stroll.
In the wild, the lazy fellow stays in the trees most of the time. Once in a great while, he may decide to come down to the ground, This is a risky business, for he is almost helpless and much too slow and dopey to escape an enemy. However, he can walk on the ground, though his walk is slow and clumsy. The two‑toed sloth cannot hold his body upright as he walks, but the three‑toed sloth can hold his body clear of the ground.
Strange to say, the sloth is at his best in the water. He can swims much faster than he can travel through the trees and much more safely than he can walk the forest trails. He swims by floating in the water and paddling himself along with his powerful front legs.
In the dim past, the giant ancestors of the sloth roamed over most of the world. The modern sloth lives only in the tropical jungles of the New World, He is only two or three feet long, though his shaggy coat makes him look somewhat larger, High up in the trees, the sloth might be mistaken for a bear who did not care a hoop about his appearance.
The sloth is a lonely fellow, too lazy to bear the company of even his relatives, The baby is always an only child and he spends his early days resting on his mother’s hairy tummy while she hangs upside down from s. tree, Later he will take up a life of solitude. Perhaps the only thing that will arouse him is the approach of another sloth, In the zoo, each must have a separate cage or they would fight each other to the death.
The sloth is a vegetarian and he wakes up only long enough to munch a meal of green leaves. Usually he sleeps about 18 hours a day. He is so slow and dopey that plants have time to grow in his thick fur. In the rainy season, his coat often turns green. This is because green algae grow in his coat and Mr. Lazy Bones seems to be covered with moss. When the rains stop, this mossy garden withers away and the sloth returns to his shaggy coat of dark, brownish grey.