The summer of sloth

Baby Elvis sloth and his favourite toy. Photographed by Gaby Di Caprio 

The world's gone bonkers for sloths. It seems my little video featuring the sleepy residents of the world's only sloth orphanage is the equivalent of grade A cute crack for millions of LOL squee loving junkies. It's been watched by nearly 2 million people around the world from Greece (one of the first countries where the clip went viral - but then they needed a laugh that week what with the small matter of total economic meltdown) to Guam (66 Guamians have now watched which is presumably the entire population). 

The sloths are now more famous than Jesus having been featured in Entertainment Weekly, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, the Approval Matrix in the New York magazine and on CNN all in the space of a week. Everyone is jumping on the sloth bandwagon - I hear that Madonna is adopting one, Jordan is attempting to marry one and Obama is considering using the sloths to help negotiate a peace agreement with North Korea. 

Sweet dreams 

I am of course delighted that people have fallen for the sloths. They may not be your traditional cutie-pie pin ups, with their terrible table manners and lazy reputation, but they're hugely charismatic and deserve to be loved. Especially if it helps spread awareness about the need to protect their habitat from man's further incursion (which is what's ultimately responsible for all the orphaned babies). 

Fame can of course be a poisoned chalice so the sloths are lucky they have their adopted mum, sloth whisperer Judy Arroyo, to ensure that their new-found celebrity doesn't go to their heads. They don't want to end up like poor old Knut the polar bear, the Macauley Culkin of the animal world.

A few years ago the world went nuts for Knut, a cute 'n' fluffy baby polar bear born at Berlin zoo. His first public appearance was greeted with a frenzy of media attention and attended by no less than 500 journalists. He became the star of his own feature film and even made the cover of Vanity Fair. 

But within a year Knut had grown from a snowy white powder puff into a 17 stone mottled grey brute the size of an angry man. As such, his popularity waned and no amount of performing tricks with his favourite dirty sock could bring back the crowds that once thronged outside his enclosure. When Knut started to behave oddly zoologists declared that he had become a psychopath, addicted to human attention. A tragic tale indeed. 

Adult Knut is a massive cute *fail* for the squee generation

The Austrian zoologist Konrad Lorenz was the first to propose our love of cuteness as a scientific phenomenon. He believed that human attraction to animals with big eyes, oversized heads and baby-like vulnerability is an evolutionary adaptation to ensure that we nurture our children. More recently scientists have discovered that cute imagery really does work like crack by stimulating the reward centre of the brain in the same way that sex, cocaine or good food does. It's powerful, primal stuff.

Warning: baby sloths are highly addictive 

Even scientists aren't immune to the lure of cute. A recent study showed that a rampant bias exists among researchers towards "cute and interesting" animals, with threatened large mammal species dominating studies and appearing in a whopping 500 times as many published papers as threatened amphibians. Teenage girls falling for Furbies is one thing but scientists choosing study subjects that give them the biggest cutegasm is a worrying trend indeed.

Which is why I love the Neotropical Conservation Foundation who have decided to support one of Central America's most neglected species - the Bolitoglossa salamanders. 

Photo courtesy of salamander saviour Joe Townsend 

If you like your animals slothful then these guys take the biscuit, moving as if they are in and on glue. Check out this video of a couple in the throws of a mating dance. It takes almost 30 seconds for the amorous male to move his puddy back foot purposefully towards the female. Something which is, I think, both hilarious and incredibly cute and best watched whilst listening to Prince's "Slow love".

These salamanders are lungless wonders whose elongated bodies absorb all the oxygen they require through their skin alone. Which is why they have such a slow metabolic rate and movement. Like sloths they too come from an ancient evolutionary line and survive predation by camouflage. In their case by mimicking monkey poo - such subterfuge being necessary as running away is simply not an option. 

It would be sad if this evolutionary strategy, successful for many millenia, is thwarted by the fact that there is nothing cute about looking like a slow moving turd. But these salamanders really need your help.

Their number one problem is climate change. They live on the tops of mountains and as it warms up there is nowhere else for them to go. Their habitat is also being destroyed so NCF are working with various partners to protect them and their mountain top homes. 

You can help the salamanders by supporting NCF, cutting down on your carbon footprint or making a small donation. 

So this summer lets celebrate laziness and spread the word that sloth is good in all forms from cute and furry to small and poo-like.

Comments

[Chad Kowalski]

Great job you people are doing with this website.

[Max]

The day I spotted my first Bolitoglossa, I decided I would probably spend the rest of my life studying them :)

Oh, and here´s a nice video by the BBC of a pair of B. schizodactyla.

http://amphibiaweb.org/sounds/Bolitoglossa_schizodactyla.mov

[Ally Carr]

I love your three toed sloths (the two toed sloths are cute too, but I am partial to three toed sloths..) and I am very happy to hear about all the good you are doing to protect the species. Thank you so much for your everyday struggles! It is very appreciated, not only by the sloths, but also by those of us twiddling our thumbs in the states not knowing how to help.
Thank You,
Ally

[Amphibian Avenger]

Deb thank you so much for your lovely message. Recently I've been receiving a lot of comments from "Viagra ONline" and "Penis Enlargement" so it was not only lovely to receive something that was written by a human and wasn't spam but also was in praise of the frogs. Many thanks for reading.

[Deb McCarroll]

Dear Lucy Cooke. Here I sit in the comfort of my own comfort, second glass of wine nearby and plenty of work to be done. But what am I doing? Reading your blog. I find when I sit down to scan this damned thing the time evaporates and I'm propelled into the steam and beauty of the jungles of the world. Thank you for this. Thank you for it all. Much love and hope for the frogs and their champion. Deb.

[maggie]

I think salamanders are damned cute, although I admit that they started making me a bit sleepy. Maybe speed up the video a whole bunch and put "Yakety Sax" to it. :)

[Amphibian Avenger]

Ha ha Maxyne. Tis true she likes them with a deep tan. Very funny. x

[Maxyne]

The Salamander seems much more Jordan's type. Great post Lucy x