The Power of Sloth

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2018

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Zoologist and founder of the Sloth Appreciation Society, Lucy Cooke, unleashes her inner sloth to discover why being lazy could actually be the ultimate evolutionary strategy.

The explorers of the New World described sloths as ‘the lowest form of existence’, but sloths are actually some of the most enduring of all tropical mammals. They make up one third of the mammalian biomass in rainforests and have survived some 64 million years - outliving far flashier animals like sabre tooth tigers.

The secret to the sloth’s success is their slothful nature and their suite of energy-saving adaptations. In fact slothfulness is such a successful strategy, that there are examples all over the animal kingdom, including, surprisingly, worker ants. Recent studies in humans have shown the many health benefits of adopting a slower pace of life. Sleep itself is universal amongst the animal kingdom. All animals do it, but why remains a mystery. What is clear though, is that unleashing your inner couch potato is no bad thing, be you sloth or human.

Lucy discovers the genius behind the sloths laid back attitude and fights the corner for laziness.

Producer: Alexandra Feachem

Picture: A young two-toed sloth sits in a bucket, September 2017. Credit: Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert / AFP / Getty Images

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds.
0:29.2	So I'm at London Zoo and I'm in my favorite enclosure at London Zoo which is where the sloths are.
0:40.0	A bradipus or Slooth am I I live a life of ease contented not. I'm playing the game of Spot the Sloth, which is actually not a very easy thing to do.
1:00.0	I have three toes on either foot and hang my word I've just had. The sloth pointed out to me.
1:10.0	They are such fantastically eccentric creatures.
1:13.0	Is it a he or she is?
1:18.0	Is it Marilyn?
1:20.0	This sloth is called Marilyn.
1:23.4	She's got her head, she's got her head wedged,
1:27.2	for some unknown reason,
1:29.1	wedged inside a lamp on the on the ceiling. If she could make herself more eccentric looking she has
1:37.8	actually achieved that by shoving her head up a ceiling lamp.
1:43.0	And whereas most mammals would have hot-footed it away from me because I'm a big mammal myself I could be dangerous.
1:57.0	Marilyn, the sloth, instead has not moved an inch. Slow down, you move too fast.
2:07.0	You got to make the morning last.
	...

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