INSTA-GLORY

The sloth has had an image makeover. Once reviled as useless and lazy, it’s now the most beloved animal of Instagram. So, why the change?

- DOUG LOYNES

Costa Rican naturalist Percy Piedra points to the bough of a cecropia tree drooping over a murky brown river that twists and winds through Tortuguero National Park. Even viewed through his telescope, the animal he has spotted is almost invisible, its body having blended into a knotted tangle of branches and leaves. Only when a rangy limb begins to scratch sluggishly at a mass of grey-green fur virtually indistinguishable from the vegetation does the creature finally betray its hiding place.

For Jade, visiting Costa Rica from Texas, the sighting is enough to bring her to the verge of tears. “This is the first time I’ve seen a sloth in the wild,” she chokes. “I’ve been dreaming of this for years.”

The sloth hasn’t always been viewed with such enthusiasm. Its earliest mention in historical literature was recorded by the Spanish colonialist Oviedo, who declared that the sloth was “the stupidest animal that can be found in the world”, adding that he had “never seen such an ugly animal or one that is more useless”. Sloths are also, quite literally, synonymous with laziness no matter which language you’re referring to them in, and they suffer the additional ignominy of sharing their name with the seventh deadly sin.