Wednesday, February 11, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
The sloth is not
slothful!
“Sloth” and “Slothful”
are terms that have been
bothering me for a long
time because they suggest
a description that the sloth
doesn’t deserve. Sloths liv-
ing today — and even those
of yesteryear — have these
descriptions in Webster’s
Dictionary and other like
publications, to wit: Idle;
lackadaisical; lazy; shiftless.
Even my hero Henry
David Thoreau’s defini-
tion of slothfulness — “An
unclean person is univer-
sally a slothful one; envious,
slothful vice, never makes
its way in lofty characters,
but like the skulking viper,
creeps…” — bothers me no
end.
“Slothfulness” is even
one of the Seven Deadly
Sins in Christian moral tra-
dition, referring to laziness,
and also defined as spiritual
or emotional apathy, neglect-
ing what God has spoken,
and being physically and
emotionally inactive.
Does that slow-moving
vegetarian of the forests
deserve such an image? I
think not!
The fossil sloth above is
an example of the extended
family of ground sloths
that existed throughout the
Americas, and died out
approximately 11,000 years
ago, when humans first
entered their habitation.
Just walking was a prob-
lem for sloths; the size of
their claws forced them to
stand on the sides of their
feet and to balance with their
huge tail in order to reach the
vegetation in trees. Chewing
their food was also a prob-
lem; unlike most mammals,
their teeth lacked enamel
Find Your
Health.
Love Yourself!
• Elevate Your Diet
• Increase Your Energy
• Balance Your Stress
�
Me
Marlys Underwood
Certifi ed Health Coach
750 Buckaroo Trail, Suite 104
— 541-977-7900 —
and were ever-growing.
Paleontologists have
identified three distinct spe-
cies that once ranged across
what is the USA today:
Paramylodon harlani —
across the U.S., especially
the western states, lived in
open park-like grasslands;
Nothrotheriops shastensis
—western U.S. and Florida,
Texas, Mexico, found in
drier habitat than harlani,
and Megalonyx jeffersoni —
Alaska, NW Canada, across
the U.S., living its life in for-
ests in these parts.
They also liked spend-
ing time in caves and other
under-the-surface areas,
and some, such as the large
mylodon sloths in South
America are believed to
have dug giant-sized bur-
rows where paleontologists
found evidence of sloth
bones and claw marks.
Now, that doesn’t sound
as though sloths were “idle,
lackadaisical, lazy, or shift-
less” does it?
Living sloths of today
are medium-sized mammals
belonging to the zoological
families Megalonychidae
(two-toed sloth) and
Bradypodidae (three-toed
sloth), and further classified
into six species. Also, their
bodies make good habitat
for other organisms; a single
sloth may be home to moths,
beetles, cockroaches, cili-
ates, fungi and algae.
But, what’s really very
disheartening is that the
names for sloths used for
food and fur by tribes in
Ecuador include ritto, rit,
and ridette —mostly forms
of the words “sleep,” “eat,”
and “dirty.”
From my perspective, the
following attribute may be
why humans are still using
the term slothful to charac-
terize others who seem to
be out of sync with the rest
of animal life: sloths in the
wild move only when nec-
essary, and even then, v-e-
r-y s-l-o-w-l-y; which is
not their fault — they have
about a quarter as much
25
redmond
airport sees
jump in use
photo by JiM anderson
What remains of the giant ground Sloth, mounted in the Nevada State
museum in Las Vegas.
muscle tissue as other ani-
mals of similar weight.
Unlike most humans we
know, sloths’ specialized
“hands and feet” have long,
curved claws allowing them
to hang upside down from
branches without effort.
(However, most anyone who
has raised children has seen
their kids do this as well…)
Sloths sometimes sit
on top of branches, where
they usually eat, sleep, and
even give birth hanging
from limbs, and sometimes
even remain hanging from
branches after death. (My
wife Sue, says the same
about my afternoon naps
when she finds me with my
arms hanging outside the
covers, knuckles on the floor
of the bedroom.)
And here’s another
trait that may have helped
humans debase sloths: they
were thought to be among
the most somnolent of mam-
mals, sleeping from 15 to 18
hours each day. However,
the Max Planck Institute for
Ornithology in Starnberg,
Germany, published a study
indicating that sloths sleep
just under 10 hours a day.
And, how about this:
sloths go to the ground to
urinate and defecate — but
only about once a week —
and, unlike some of my old
hunting buddies, a sloth
will dig a hole and covers
it afterwards, always at the
base of the same tree to fer-
tilize it. Some people believe
it is to avoid making noise
while defecating from up
high that would attract pred-
ators. Now, does that sound
“slothful?”
The Redmond Municipal
Airport experienced a signifi-
cant increase in the number
of passengers during the 2014
calendar year. A record num-
ber of 524,338 passengers
traveled through the airport
in 2014, resulting in a 6.87
percent increase above the
489,510 passengers served in
2013. The previous record was
set in 2008, when the airport
served 492,953 passengers.
“We are pleased with the
continued increase in passen-
ger numbers and would like
to thank our customers for
choosing Redmond Municipal
Airport to meet their air ser-
vice needs,” said Jeff Tripp,
airport director. “The airport
is an important regional asset
contributing to the economic
vitality of the Central Oregon
region. These strong numbers
show that commercial flights
to and from Redmond con-
tinue to be both popular and
competitively priced.”
For information on flights
to and from Redmond, visit
www.flyrdm.com.
An intimate cottage offering a
Southern France inspired dining experience.
Open Wednesday through Sunday beginning at 5 p.m.
541-549-2699 | 403 E. Hood Ave., Sisters
www.jensgardenmenu.com