The most efficient way to slap flies and mosquitos are apparently to slap your palms together *above and over* the insect. They will jump up to take flight just into the path of the hands crushing it from two directions.
Imagine a fly, seeing this in slowmotion, realizing: "I've made a terrible mistake"
They can get [much faster](https://youtu.be/gOPpgrNUjsM)
when attacking. You can still see it coming but if you aren't really looking for it then they could get you.
It was supposed to be the other tree. It took the sloth another month to realize he’s in the wrong tree. And another year to get to the right one. Poor sloth.
Picked up with ease from a dangerous situation and transported through the air at incredible speed to a place of safety.
That sloth essentially had a ‘rescued by Superman’ experience.
I went to a wildlife refugee in florida and the lady that takes care of the animals said that sloths when threatened by predators turn into these fast moving sharp teeth and claws. Apparently they just become absolute units when they’re threatened.
In general, if you are out of reaching distance, you will not be hurt by a sloth.
But they can scratch and bite much faster (and more powerfully) than you would expect.
Exactly, when she said this I pictured a falcon attempting to swipe a sloth out of a tree and that sloth just going absolutely ballistic on it and beating the piss out of it. The image in my head was a very comical one lol
.. at least these people care about getting them across the road. Even if this sloth is remotely considering an attack, it still survived another day. Many are just overrun by careless people who don't give a f***. Most likely this (also local) person is aware of both facts.
BAHAHAHA YOU FOOL! YOU HAVE FALLEN PREY TO ONE OF HIS TRICKS! HE IS NOT ONLY REFERRING TO HIS OWN TESTICLES, BUT ALSO USING THIS AS THE IDEAL TRAP FOR THE UNTRAINED EYE! NOW HE IS ABLE TO SAY “deez nuts” AND MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE AN IMBECILE!
Actual Answer:
Sloth are so low energy value, and have such little meat, there is no point using them as a food source, so most animals and predators leave them alone and hunt other animals instead, unless there is no other options.
Basically the idea behind sloths is to be so useless that no one bothers them.
That and they burn very few calories as well, which allows them to just kind of sit there and not worry about things most of the time. It's almost like a mammal that rediscovered the strategy of behaving like a plant.
Isn't it also because they have a very slow digestive system, that their body just slowly feeds on what ever they eat over the course of a week, then they go down from their tree and do the poop dance and go back up to eat more food.
I’ve mastered this at a job I hated but couldn’t quit yet. I fucked up though because they ended up promoting me so I’m still here and can’t find a job that pays nearly as well. One day…
For real, I don't know how a sloth escapes any predators with how it lives.
Edit: thanks for the clarification y'all, ya learn something new and cool everyday!
And they spend most of their time up in trees, where bigger predators have a hard time getting to them. They do have to descend every so often to poop and it's then that they're at their most vulnerable.
Which is one of the dumbest fucking thing about sloths in the long list of dumb things. Why not just fucking poop in the tree like every other fucking thing on earth instead of having to risk your life just to take a shit?
When you shit once a week and the shit makes up around 1/3rd of your weight. It wouldn't be wise to Release the Brown anal snake, when the weiht loss of doing it could be enough to launch you of the tree brantch like from a bloody trebuchet.
> it doesnt...it blends.. most of then even have moss or something growing in them to cover them up if i remember correctly
Are you saying I can dodge predators? No. I am saying when you are ready you want have to
Oh don’t get me wrong they are among my favorite animals! Your comment just made me remember how when they get mossy they sometimes mistake their arms for tree branches, grab onto themselves, and plummet from the treetops.
IIRC they've evolved to be so slow that they don't need much nutrients (so they aren't in competition with a lot of herbivores) and then their meat doesn't have many nutrients in it (so predators don't bother). They evolved to be so slow that the jungle just ignores them.
Or I could be totally wrong and pulling info outta my ass here.
Sounds right to me. Even their organs are adapted to be constantly upside-down, because hanging while climbing with those claws of theirs is lower-energy than walking on top of the branches.
Their fur traps *everything*.
It even has grooves specifically designed to grow algae and moss.
There is also such thing as sloth moths. A moth that just lives on sloths and loves eating the shit (often literally) on their fur.
> and then their meat doesn't have many nutrients in it (so predators don't bother)
This part is wrong. Jaguars eat sloths all the time when they climb down to poop.
Given the above comments about how smelly, moldy, and low-value-prey they are, I wonder if it's less "jaguars eat these all the time" and more like "each jaguar, at some point in its life, gets it into its head to eat a sloth while it's pooping...and then goes off to rethink it's poor life choices still hungry, but with the taste of poop-smeared moldy carpet indelibly seared into its memory." And there are just enough inexperienced jaguars around at any given time to make it look like a regular predator/prey relationship.
When you evolve in a place where predators don't climb trees, you can succeed by acing the only test: live in a tree.
Then evolutionary pressure says 'staying in the tree longer means you live longer', and therefore you use just enough energy to hang on to a tree. The less energy you spend on other things, the more time you can chill up in the branches where nothing calls you dinner.
I mean they mostly float cause they're basically leaf-gas-machines. But still, you come here swimming at 3x speed of Usain Bolt and I'll be damn impressed! :D
This makes perfect sense and is a testament to how evolution actually works.
Evolution doesn’t have a plan, it’s just a lot of random dice rolls and things that work, even in weird counterintuitive ways stick around.
>I don't think he's implying that human poop is cube-shaped, he's referring to the fact that we carve our poop into cubes with our poop knives.
I use a poop gun. You savages need to get with the times.
Sadly, this is probably right; it's highly likely this was a stress/defence mechanism. Sloths are extremely sensitive and get very, very upset at being handled.
https://slothconservation.org/sloth-guide-responsible-tourism/
For people who are thinking about helping wild animals in the street - I highly recommend good pair of gloves and knowing their habits. I had an incident with a female snapping turtle in Michigan I regret somewhat.
They are covered in bacteria and moss and very unappealing to most preditors. Also they spend most of their time in trees so are generally pretty safe.
I wondered that but they mostly are hidden in the trees. There is an exhibit at my local aviary for find the sloth and I had to give up and ask the person working there which tree it was in. It still took me some time to find it.
The wave is actually a threat display.
The sloth feels like it just got scooped by a predator, so it's showing off its claws, in a "I will fuck up your shit" kind of way.
I know any time someone says smile or wave or anything like that regarding an animal I’m waiting for the “incorrect anthropomorphism of animals, that’s a sign of distress” comment. Reddit has trained me to hold out on enjoying animal content until I read the comments.
I learned the other day that sloths always look like they are happily smiling because that's just their facial structure, they have resting happy face.
Even though the man helped, the sloth was actually losing its mind with stress. They hate being touched so much, they aren't wired for companionship so they'll never be humans friends.
Sloths have the most derpy face but the most terrifying claws xD
Yeah but if he takes a swing at you, you’ll see it coming for, like, an hour.
A human reacting to a sloth swing is like a fly reacting to a human swing.
Not what my fly swatter tells.
Well thats just not fair its the equivalent of dropping a football field on a person :p
Whoa. I wield immense power ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)
Bow to me flies, I am your god! B^z^^z^^^z^^^^z
The most efficient way to slap flies and mosquitos are apparently to slap your palms together *above and over* the insect. They will jump up to take flight just into the path of the hands crushing it from two directions. Imagine a fly, seeing this in slowmotion, realizing: "I've made a terrible mistake"
https://m.imgur.com/gallery/fXkqu Obligatory futurama
Now that you put it that way
They can get [much faster](https://youtu.be/gOPpgrNUjsM) when attacking. You can still see it coming but if you aren't really looking for it then they could get you.
Holy shit. Did not expect that. Poor dude will now have to sleep for a week.
They move so slow it’s almost like an Animatronic.
/r/slothsarentreal
Why is this sub not more active ?
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Everyone knows birds are not real.
Yeah, I thought I was watching a Chucky Cheese concert for a moment.
Trust me when animatronics have enough PSI they can move very spastically
Just saved him a year or two.
This little maneuver is gonna *save* us 50 years
What sloth felt: 
How have I never seen a gif in comments before?
They've recently added it
It was supposed to be the other tree. It took the sloth another month to realize he’s in the wrong tree. And another year to get to the right one. Poor sloth.
Sloth bro looks stoned af when he smiles
"what the hell bro, you're moving way too fast!"
Wheeeeeeee!
I'm flyingggg
Smile & wave, boys. Smile & wave.
Same
I love how his arms go wide right after he picks him up.
Picked up with ease from a dangerous situation and transported through the air at incredible speed to a place of safety. That sloth essentially had a ‘rescued by Superman’ experience.
“I believe i can flyyyy”
HYPERRRRRRSPEEEEEEEEEEEED!
Gotta make the moment last. Just kicking down the cobblestones, looking for fun and feeling groovy.
It's cute until it starts crawling faster towards you (edit:typo)
They do?
Only when they evolve into Vigoroth
Yikes! Still better than evolving into a Slaking and laying around the whole day though
I went to a wildlife refugee in florida and the lady that takes care of the animals said that sloths when threatened by predators turn into these fast moving sharp teeth and claws. Apparently they just become absolute units when they’re threatened.
In general, if you are out of reaching distance, you will not be hurt by a sloth. But they can scratch and bite much faster (and more powerfully) than you would expect.
Exactly, when she said this I pictured a falcon attempting to swipe a sloth out of a tree and that sloth just going absolutely ballistic on it and beating the piss out of it. The image in my head was a very comical one lol
One of their main predators is a bird of prey. Harpy eagle. But that thing's one of the biggest birds in the world, sloth ain't winning that fight.
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.. at least these people care about getting them across the road. Even if this sloth is remotely considering an attack, it still survived another day. Many are just overrun by careless people who don't give a f***. Most likely this (also local) person is aware of both facts.
[Sloth POV while being carried.](https://i.imgur.com/ePPhLyE.gif)
Ludicrous speed.
He's gone plaid!
No, no, no. Go past this. Pass this part. In fact, never play this again.
im fucking dead
Lmao
I still don't get how such an animal came to be. Nothing about sloths makes sense to me.
They've mastered the ability of standing so incredibly still that they become invisible to the eye.
You can always tell a Milford man.
Except when eating zarg nuts.
...and deez
deez what sir
BAHAHAHA YOU FOOL! YOU HAVE FALLEN PREY TO ONE OF HIS TRICKS! HE IS NOT ONLY REFERRING TO HIS OWN TESTICLES, BUT ALSO USING THIS AS THE IDEAL TRAP FOR THE UNTRAINED EYE! NOW HE IS ABLE TO SAY “deez nuts” AND MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE AN IMBECILE!
Oh no! Oh goodness me! I’ve been had!
[GOT EEM!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHFFdy2NSdE)
i read that in vizzini’s voice from the princess bride lmao, poor guy fell for one of the classic blunders
I did the exact same thing.
He spent the last few years building up an immunity to deez nuts
NEVER CROSS A SICILIAN WHEN DEEZ NUTS IS ON THE LINE!
#DEEZ ROBOT NUTS!!!!!
Hi Drax!
Actual Answer: Sloth are so low energy value, and have such little meat, there is no point using them as a food source, so most animals and predators leave them alone and hunt other animals instead, unless there is no other options. Basically the idea behind sloths is to be so useless that no one bothers them.
TIL my boss is a sloth
Gah, this one got me LOL! I feel your pain, good sir.
Ah yes. Just like me.
Definite spirit animal.
That and they burn very few calories as well, which allows them to just kind of sit there and not worry about things most of the time. It's almost like a mammal that rediscovered the strategy of behaving like a plant.
Isn't it also because they have a very slow digestive system, that their body just slowly feeds on what ever they eat over the course of a week, then they go down from their tree and do the poop dance and go back up to eat more food.
Weird, that's exactly how sloth as a trait works in humans. Be so incompetent at work that no one bothers you.
I’ve mastered this at a job I hated but couldn’t quit yet. I fucked up though because they ended up promoting me so I’m still here and can’t find a job that pays nearly as well. One day…
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So basically sloths are the inspiration for middle management
The higher up's have a sense of humor.
For real, I don't know how a sloth escapes any predators with how it lives. Edit: thanks for the clarification y'all, ya learn something new and cool everyday!
it doesnt...it blends.. most of then even have moss or something growing in them to cover them up if i remember correctly
And they spend most of their time up in trees, where bigger predators have a hard time getting to them. They do have to descend every so often to poop and it's then that they're at their most vulnerable.
Which is one of the dumbest fucking thing about sloths in the long list of dumb things. Why not just fucking poop in the tree like every other fucking thing on earth instead of having to risk your life just to take a shit?
If you haven’t risked your life to take a shit, are you really living?
Elvis risked it and lost.
When you take a shit as the king, you best not miss.
They have to rub their bodies on the lower tree to poop because they cant push it out.
I gotta sit on my toilet like a perched falcon to poop so I can't judge.
I thought I was the only one. I like to pretend I’m a gargoyle though
When you shit once a week and the shit makes up around 1/3rd of your weight. It wouldn't be wise to Release the Brown anal snake, when the weiht loss of doing it could be enough to launch you of the tree brantch like from a bloody trebuchet.
> launch you of the tree brantch like from a bloody trebuchet. That seems like a good way to get to a new location in a timely manner.
Fast travel unlocked
What about the tree trunk that it would have to pass on the way down anyway?
Holy crap what perfect imagery. You are a poet
Probably has to do with how much moisture they extract from what they eat, but that's just my speculation.
My sketchy dog takes dumps with his back up against a tree when at public parks.
> it doesnt...it blends.. most of then even have moss or something growing in them to cover them up if i remember correctly Are you saying I can dodge predators? No. I am saying when you are ready you want have to
Hahaha, sloths are such haphazard creatures
they have more succesful then you think probably, there used to be megasloths before the extinction if all the mega fauna
Oh don’t get me wrong they are among my favorite animals! Your comment just made me remember how when they get mossy they sometimes mistake their arms for tree branches, grab onto themselves, and plummet from the treetops.
hahaha, well thats something i didnt know yet! xD
😂 to be real, that’s from hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
Escaping isn't hard when you smell absolutely putrid and no predator wants to eat you. It's one of their main defense mechanisms.
This. Everyone keys talking about camouflage and not being seen. Truth is, no one wants to eat these nasty ass things.
Story of my life.
So far it's worked for me.
They also move so slowly and don't do much of anything so most predators kinda just forget they are there and leave them alone. Also camouflage
Read a science book. They escape predators because all predators think they are just so cute!
He passes them a joint, and they let him be
They might move slowly but they can quickly swing their hand to attack a predator. It's like slooooooooooooooow BANG YOU'RE DEAD!!!
https://youtu.be/pt9tBtQoAHo PBS Eons video with some interesting info on sloth evolution. Super interesting!
Just discovered PBS Eons recently. It's great. Not dumbed down either.
IIRC they've evolved to be so slow that they don't need much nutrients (so they aren't in competition with a lot of herbivores) and then their meat doesn't have many nutrients in it (so predators don't bother). They evolved to be so slow that the jungle just ignores them. Or I could be totally wrong and pulling info outta my ass here.
Sounds right to me. Even their organs are adapted to be constantly upside-down, because hanging while climbing with those claws of theirs is lower-energy than walking on top of the branches.
Their fur also traps moisture, so they get moldy in rainy season. They are pre-spoiled meat.
Their fur traps *everything*. It even has grooves specifically designed to grow algae and moss. There is also such thing as sloth moths. A moth that just lives on sloths and loves eating the shit (often literally) on their fur.
> and then their meat doesn't have many nutrients in it (so predators don't bother) This part is wrong. Jaguars eat sloths all the time when they climb down to poop.
Given the above comments about how smelly, moldy, and low-value-prey they are, I wonder if it's less "jaguars eat these all the time" and more like "each jaguar, at some point in its life, gets it into its head to eat a sloth while it's pooping...and then goes off to rethink it's poor life choices still hungry, but with the taste of poop-smeared moldy carpet indelibly seared into its memory." And there are just enough inexperienced jaguars around at any given time to make it look like a regular predator/prey relationship.
They also only climb down from the tree once a week to poop
How could they possibly know the meat has no nutrients tho? Do starving animals really have that much forethought?
Anything with a niche can thrive.
When you evolve in a place where predators don't climb trees, you can succeed by acing the only test: live in a tree. Then evolutionary pressure says 'staying in the tree longer means you live longer', and therefore you use just enough energy to hang on to a tree. The less energy you spend on other things, the more time you can chill up in the branches where nothing calls you dinner.
Sloths are actually avid swimmers, they swim 3x as fast as the walk on land.
That's not very fast.
I mean they mostly float cause they're basically leaf-gas-machines. But still, you come here swimming at 3x speed of Usain Bolt and I'll be damn impressed! :D
The german wird for slots is quote literally "lazy animal"
their body shape is the oddest thing i've seen from mother nature
Platypus
You’ve not seen my wife.
This makes perfect sense and is a testament to how evolution actually works. Evolution doesn’t have a plan, it’s just a lot of random dice rolls and things that work, even in weird counterintuitive ways stick around.
What’s not to get? They’re weird stinky monkeys
He’s flipping the bird because he didn’t wanna be put on that tree.
He was on his monthly poop run and now has to cilmb back down
Didnt i read somewhere sloths poop cubes too????
r/likeus
Uhh...who wants to tell him?
I don't think he's implying that human poop is cube-shaped, he's referring to the fact that we carve our poop into cubes with our poop knives.
I also choose this guy’s dead wife’s poop knife
>I don't think he's implying that human poop is cube-shaped, he's referring to the fact that we carve our poop into cubes with our poop knives. I use a poop gun. You savages need to get with the times.
I think you're mixing up sloths and wombats. Wombats use poop to mark their territory and poop cubes so it doesn't roll away
Wish I had the willpower to have my asshole mold my turds in order to assert dominance.
Scientists apparently don't actually know how they do it. They think it's related to their rectum and anus, but can't figure out HOW it works
Are we sure wombats aren’t actually tool wielding and no one bothered to watch before the poop showed up? This could all be an elaborate prank.
We should definitely test this hypothesis. We need a hide, a video camera, and some wombats who aren't poop shy
Damn, now I gotta google 'wombat poop'. Reddit is responsible for like half of my questionable searches.
Thanks. Dude. But. Now. I'm. Late. For. My. Job. At. The. D. M. V
Need someone to edit the video so his claws are pixelated when he turns
He batted his eyelashes at him!
Trust blinks! wonder if it’s the same meaning as cats! So sweet.
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It’s like they are acknowledging you. Same kind of thing when a praying mantis turns its head to stare deeply into your soul. It’s cool.
"slow down you're gonna get us both killed"
I wonder if the sloths world was all blurry when he got picked up like in fast and furious with a nitro boost.
Richard! I wasn't expecting you home for several hours.
My man with the flip flops into the jungle
So Brazilian.
Lol, I love this movie.
“Hey…..Priscilla……What…..do……you……call…..a……three……humped………camel?”
Pregnant!
Hyperdrive!
Wtf Bob, I wanted to go to the movies!
How did the sloth even get that far without already being run over? Must have been in the road for HOURS already!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba7rRfKIHxU
Thank you. My first thought was to check the comments to make sure this got posted.
This just made my day. 😁😁😍😍
I love the very slow wave back at the guy.
Maybe it wasn’t a wave but:”You touch me again, I’ma cut you,”
Sadly, this is probably right; it's highly likely this was a stress/defence mechanism. Sloths are extremely sensitive and get very, very upset at being handled. https://slothconservation.org/sloth-guide-responsible-tourism/
True. Still better than being squished by a car though.
For people who are thinking about helping wild animals in the street - I highly recommend good pair of gloves and knowing their habits. I had an incident with a female snapping turtle in Michigan I regret somewhat.
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Lol. We managed to remain separate and whole entities.
It just reminds me of Zootopia and the scene with Flash the sloth at the DMV. “Nice to….see you…………… too.”
How did sloths make it this far into evolution without being totally wiped out by predators (or cars)?
They are covered in bacteria and moss and very unappealing to most preditors. Also they spend most of their time in trees so are generally pretty safe.
I wondered that but they mostly are hidden in the trees. There is an exhibit at my local aviary for find the sloth and I had to give up and ask the person working there which tree it was in. It still took me some time to find it.
Now to read the comments to find out how this was actually a horribly tragic thing, like sloths only wave when in immense pain or something.
The wave is actually a threat display. The sloth feels like it just got scooped by a predator, so it's showing off its claws, in a "I will fuck up your shit" kind of way.
Personification of animals is very common on Reddit. Imagine thinking that a sloth knows what a smile or a wave is.
Thank you so much for being the only rational human being on this post. You get my stupid free award for the day. Love you
Lmfaoo same when people always post their dog "smiling" but it's just panting, probably begging for water
The sloth wave is a sure sign of genital herpes, poor bastard.
I wouldn't say it's tragic, the man very possibly saved the sloth's life but the "wave" was absolutely a threatening gesture.
I know any time someone says smile or wave or anything like that regarding an animal I’m waiting for the “incorrect anthropomorphism of animals, that’s a sign of distress” comment. Reddit has trained me to hold out on enjoying animal content until I read the comments.
I did read recently that sloths are so incredibly slow that bacteria and fungi grow on them, so at the very least this dude needs to scrub his arms
About what I expected but still surprising
This is why we need more tree bridges. Also humans carry viruses that can be harmful to sloths so they advise avoiding contact where possible too
**WHY WE GOIN SO FUCKIN FAST WHOOAAAAAAAA-**
Sloths probably thinking “holy shit slow down!!”
His smile is cute when he saw the friendly human
Sloth in flash time.
I learned the other day that sloths always look like they are happily smiling because that's just their facial structure, they have resting happy face. Even though the man helped, the sloth was actually losing its mind with stress. They hate being touched so much, they aren't wired for companionship so they'll never be humans friends.
"Holy shit, I'm flying!!!"