The sloth is not slothful!

"Sloth" and "Slothful" are terms that have been bothering me for a long time because they suggest a description that the sloth doesn't deserve. Sloths living today - and even those of yesteryear - have these descriptions in Webster's Dictionary and other like publications, to wit: Idle; lackadaisical; lazy; shiftless.

Even my hero Henry David Thoreau's definition of slothfulness - "An unclean person is universally a slothful one; envious, slothful vice, never makes its way in lofty characters, but like the skulking viper, creeps..." - bothers me no end.

"Slothfulness" is even one of the Seven Deadly Sins in Christian moral tradition, referring to laziness, and also defined as spiritual or emotional apathy, neglecting what God has spoken, and being physically and emotionally inactive.

Does that slow-moving vegetarian of the forests deserve such an image? I think not!

The fossil sloth above is an example of the extended family of ground sloths that existed throughout the Americas, and died out approximately 11,000 years ago, when humans first entered their habitation.

Just walking was a problem for sloths; the size of their claws forced them to stand on the sides of their feet and to balance with their huge tail in order to reach the vegetation in trees. Chewing their food was also a problem; unlike most mammals, their teeth lacked enamel and were ever-growing.

Paleontologists have identified three distinct species that once ranged across what is the USA today: Paramylodon harlani - across the U.S., especially the western states, lived in open park-like grasslands; Nothrotheriops shastensis -western U.S. and Florida, Texas, Mexico, found in drier habitat than harlani, and Megalonyx jeffersoni - Alaska, NW Canada, across the U.S., living its life in forests in these parts.

They also liked spending time in caves and other under-the-surface areas, and some, such as the large mylodon sloths in South America are believed to have dug giant-sized burrows where paleontologists found evidence of sloth bones and claw marks.

Now, that doesn't sound as though sloths were "idle, lackadaisical, lazy, or shiftless" does it?

Living sloths of today are medium-sized mammals belonging to the zoological families Megalonychidae (two-toed sloth) and Bradypodidae (three-toed sloth), and further classified into six species. Also, their bodies make good habitat for other organisms; a single sloth may be home to moths, beetles, cockroaches, ciliates, fungi and algae.

But, what's really very disheartening is that the names for sloths used for food and fur by tribes in Ecuador include ritto, rit, and ridette -mostly forms of the words "sleep," "eat," and "dirty."

From my perspective, the following attribute may be why humans are still using the term slothful to characterize others who seem to be out of sync with the rest of animal life: sloths in the wild move only when necessary, and even then, v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y; which is not their fault - they have about a quarter as much muscle tissue as other animals of similar weight.

Unlike most humans we know, sloths' specialized "hands and feet" have long, curved claws allowing them to hang upside down from branches without effort. (However, most anyone who has raised children has seen their kids do this as well...)

Sloths sometimes sit on top of branches, where they usually eat, sleep, and even give birth hanging from limbs, and sometimes even remain hanging from branches after death. (My wife Sue, says the same about my afternoon naps when she finds me with my arms hanging outside the covers, knuckles on the floor of the bedroom.)

And here's another trait that may have helped humans debase sloths: they were thought to be among the most somnolent of mammals, sleeping from 15 to 18 hours each day. However, the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Starnberg, Germany, published a study indicating that sloths sleep just under 10 hours a day.

And, how about this: sloths go to the ground to urinate and defecate - but only about once a week - and, unlike some of my old hunting buddies, a sloth will dig a hole and covers it afterwards, always at the base of the same tree to fertilize it. Some people believe it is to avoid making noise while defecating from up high that would attract predators. Now, does that sound "slothful?"