The sloth can move quickly when the need arises, such as when it’s being chased by a predator-an eagle, a jaguar, or even a human. Because the sloth has such a low metabolism and only about 25% the muscle tissue of other animals, it moves only when necessary, clocking in around 10 feet per minute. The truth is that the sloth is not so much lazy or sleepy as it is efficient. However, even when it’s not sleeping, the sloth spends about 70% of its time resting to conserve energy. Contrary to what we think about such a low-energy creature, the sloth doesn’t sleep much more than we do-about 10 hours (though in captivity sloths are known to sleep up to 15 hours a day). You would be mistaken to assume that because the sloth is slow it is also lazy. Image by Sebastian Molinares, via Unsplash. Turns out, the three-toed sloth is a complex creature that serves as a testimony to the resourceful and highly imaginative Creator God. Only in recent years have scientists uncovered research that has been incredibly contrary to our initial impression of these lollygagging sleepyheads. Named in the early 1600s for one of the Catholic church’s seven deadly sins, the sloth has been saddled with a bad reputation for centuries. We even have a whole day dedicated to them on International Sloth Day. With surprising speed, the sloth has invaded pop culture over the past few years, showing up in memes, YouTube videos, and movies like Zootopia and Ice Age.

In fact its metabolic rate is 31% that of two-toed sloths, making it a slowpoke even among other sloth species. This creature is of course the three-toed sloth, one of the slowest animals in the world. Several minutes later, it blinks and, slowly, closes its eyes to take its 17th nap of the day, not even 100 feet from where it woke up that morning. Slowly, ever so slowly, the ball of fur uncurls, blinks once or twice, then slowly, ever so slowly, reaches for a nearby branch, and slowly, ever so slowly, begins munching. Bits of sunlight stream through the thick rainforest canopy, settling on a ball of fur clinging to a branch.

Slow burn sloth