So on the Grantland NFL Podcast did a silly question of “Which animal could play QB with Peyton Manning’s Brain.” One of the guys said Sloth, because it would be funny.
It’s funny because of the obvious thoguht of “well no, Sloths are slow and couldn’t throw the ball” But that lead me to think, why are sloths so slow?
If it wanted to, COULD it move fast? If Peyton’s brain was in this thing, could he make it move fast? Is there something with a Sloth’s biology that won’t allow it’s muscles to move in a quick manner?
If I had to guess I would say they couldn’t move fast because of something with their energy consumption/metabolism
I seem to recall that their lack of speed has to do with their diet and the relative atrophy of their muscles from just sitting around all day…but I know someone will have a much better (and better supported) answer than my wild half-rememberings.
Apparently most of your average sloth’s musculature are made up of retractor muscles ( including what would normally be extensor muscles that have been modified into retractor muscles ). This makes them custom-made for clinging to stuff and, with a couple of bone and ligament mods, hanging from things ( like trees ). But utter crap at movement.
In addition they have a low muscle mass just generally relative to mammals of a comparable size.
So, yeah - they simply lack the anatomy to move quickly under any circumstances.
From wikipedia - they have a low metabolism (including low body temperature), they move only when necessary and even then they move slowly, they sleep up to 18 hours a day, and they have 1/4 the muscle mass of a comparitively sized mammal. Their metabolism is so slow that they only pee/poop once a week.
They’re not made for movement. If you fed them easier to digest food and excercised them, you’d get a dispeptic, grumpy sloth that might even be slower than usual. Actually, I’d be interested to see how you’d go about getting them to exercise without damaging them or getting damaged yourself.
Though they couldn’t be clumsier on land, sloths are surprisingly good swimmers. They sometimes fall directly from rain forest trees into rivers and stroke efficiently with their long arms.
I lived in Panama for 3 years. A sloth lived in the coconut trees out front and a family of monkeys liked to swear at him in their language. One night I came home late and was walking up the long driveway and at first I thought it was a dog that had been hit by a car or similar, but when I looked it was “my” sloth dragging himself along the ground, those claws are longer than my fingers. I leaned towards him to take a pic with my camera. I got close enuff to prove that I had really been that close, but looking at those claws I didn’t choose to get close enuff for him to get me just in case he did have the power to make one fast swipe with those claws. So I am weighing here with a very decisive “I don’t know!”
Two-toed sloths are more active and can move with some speed if provoked. They can take swipes with their forefeet and can bite with their sharp teeth. They require some care in handling. On the other hand, three-toed sloths are generally much more lethargic and can move only slowly.
