A slow man is said to do everything like a turtle, comparing him to a leisurely animal. The turtle really does everything slowly. But there are even more sluggish animals, which include the snail, koala and sloth.
As it turned out, the sloth was recognized as the slowest animal in the world, not only by the pace of its movement, but also by the way of life, which underlines its name.
The quieter you go, the further you'll get?
Sloths spend their entire lives in a tree in limbo. Having chosen a tree, the animal hangs upside down from one of its branches. In this state, animals are awake, sleeping and eating. A sloth leaves his tree only when he needs to move to another, which is extremely rare. Most often, they simply tear their paws from the branch and fall down, curled up in a ball.
In a sleepy state, the animals spend 15 hours a day, so they climb into twilight thickets and jungles. A sloth is moving at a speed of 2 meters per minute. Therefore, it is very difficult to escape when the animal is in danger. More often than not, the sloth doesn't even try to get away from her. Due to the infantile lifestyle, the animal has no instinct for self-preservation at all.
The woody leaves that the sloth feeds on are digested in its stomach throughout the month. Hence such sluggish vital activity and lack of energy.
Due to the almost immobile lifestyle, algae grows in the animal's fur, which makes the sloth's color green. This helps him to be invisible among deciduous forests. And butterflies even manage to lay eggs in the animal's fur.
For the first few months, sloth cubs are completely dependent on their mother, as they hang on her and feed on mother's milk. If the cub suddenly broke away and fell down, then she would not even notice it. In order not to be completely forgotten about it, the newborn animal has to utter screams.
The sloth sleeps all day, but with the onset of night, he wakes up and begins to slowly move from branch to branch in search of food and water. Tenacity allows the animal to travel freely through the jungle trees. The slowness of movement has developed in the animal the habit of being content with little.
Slow crawling on the ground of a sloth is somewhat similar to a turtle's steps. The animal spreads its paws wide when walking in order to move the entire weight of its body weight. In this case, he moves the limbs in a circular motion, leaning on the elbow joints.
Speed rating
Compared to the sloth, the turtle is just a sprinter! For example, a leatherback turtle on land can reach speeds of up to 40 km / h, sea turtles move even faster, however, only in water.
The slowest of the turtles is gigantic. This powerful animal is a direct descendant of the ancient inhabitants of the planet, because of the huge and massive shell, such turtles simply cannot reach speeds of more than 0.35 km / h.
It is not entirely correct to compete in speed between a snail and a sloth or a turtle, because they are fundamentally different species with different modes of movement. However, it is known that a snail travels up to 6 cm in an hour.
People also consider koalas to be slow. Marsupial bears really do not differ in life activity or stormy disposition, they spend up to 18 hours in a dream, but everything changes with the onset of night, when the animal goes in search of food. Koalas have to develop a more or less significant speed only if they are in danger or need to protect the cub, the rest of the time, due to the consumption of low-energy food, bears are lazy and unhurried.
