Manuel Antonio National Park
Not yet fully awake from a comfortable night's sleep on board the Sea Voyager, we were slowly heading towards "sloth valley," trying to understand how such a slow creature as this discrete mammal could gather such a crowd of enthusiastic nature lovers. . . to watch it as it sleeps through its whole life!
As always in the Central American rain forest during the early dry season, the sun was trying to break through the vanishing clouds, and our senses were being challenged by all kinds of stimuli. Bird songs, leaves with funny shapes dancing in the breeze, termite nests, wasps nests, as well as flycatchers, parrots and tanagers -- dwellers of the canopy were making their contributions to the morning experience.
Suddenly, hanging all by itself over the main trail, the two-toed sloth was defying gravity and at the same time in close complicity with it. The creature blamed by the positivist European savants of the 18th century for its indolence and inertia was delighting us all with its peaceful laziness.
The question is: is the sloth's peaceful way of life the key to its evolutionary success?
Any ideas?
Not yet fully awake from a comfortable night's sleep on board the Sea Voyager, we were slowly heading towards "sloth valley," trying to understand how such a slow creature as this discrete mammal could gather such a crowd of enthusiastic nature lovers. . . to watch it as it sleeps through its whole life!
As always in the Central American rain forest during the early dry season, the sun was trying to break through the vanishing clouds, and our senses were being challenged by all kinds of stimuli. Bird songs, leaves with funny shapes dancing in the breeze, termite nests, wasps nests, as well as flycatchers, parrots and tanagers -- dwellers of the canopy were making their contributions to the morning experience.
Suddenly, hanging all by itself over the main trail, the two-toed sloth was defying gravity and at the same time in close complicity with it. The creature blamed by the positivist European savants of the 18th century for its indolence and inertia was delighting us all with its peaceful laziness.
The question is: is the sloth's peaceful way of life the key to its evolutionary success?
Any ideas?
