Nomadic Narrative

Many people travel to Costa Rica to see first-hand the abundant and unique wildlife. To be honest, it can be hard to spot animals in the forest. When I do spot something, I’m always afraid to reach for the camera thinking it’s going to run away, so I just observe. I’ve heard that great wildlife photographers spend hours if not days watching a single animal to get that perfect shot. On the cover of this week’s Tico Times, one lucky photographer caught that ultimate moment—a sloth hamming it up!

Sloth facts: Costa Rica is home to two of the four sloth species found only in Central and South America—the toe-toed and the three-toed sloth, both found on the Pacific and Caribbean slopes.

• Sloths love the leaves of the cecropia tree. Because these leaves are low-energy food, sloths move slowly.
• Sloths are related to the megatherium, a six-meter giant ground sloth that became extinct 9,000 years ago.
• Sloths sometimes “dye” their fur green by letting algae grow on it to give it a green tint—the only mammal capable of achieving green-fur camouflage.
• Sloths poop and pee only once a week. Most scientists agree that sloths do this to avoid drawing the attention of predators. Instead of letting it go regularly as they rest on tree branches, sloths discreetly climb down weekly to urinate and defecate, which they then bury before returning to their perch.

A little sloth action I photographed in the Monteverde Cloudforest.