In search of the rare and ridiculously cute pygmy sloth [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Nov 12, 2020 / Lucy Cooke



Lucy Cooke

Desert island castaways have inspired novels, movies and reality TV shows — but no story of stranded humans comes close to being as dramatic or fantastic as that of Bradypus pygmaeus, a peculiar species of dwarf sloth that’s been marooned on a remote Caribbean island for the last 9,000 years.

In 2019, when the world was a more mobile place, I joined a research expedition with the Zoological Society of London to track down this real-life Robinson Crusoe and discover more about its habits and genetics in order to help conserve it. Precious little is known about this critically endangered species, and what I discovered on this trip was a tiny animal with an enormous tale to tell.

Getting to the island of Escudo de Veraguas was the first of many hurdles, however. This tiny, 4.3-square-kilometer speck of land is only 17 kilometers from Panama, but the surrounding seas are wild and unpredictable. Our precariously small fiberglass boat slammed and lurched through the choppy ocean for six hours, ensuring we arrived with stomachs in our mouths and hands like prunes.



The tiny island of Escudo de Veraguas — home to a tiny and very special sloth

The sight of the island helped soothe our rattled nerves — it was an explosion of green, fringed by pure white sand and aquamarine water so clear you could watch the candy-colored reef fish dance amongst the coral without even having to leave the boat. Escudo’s coastal waters are peppered with standing rock formations wearing top knots of the most determined plant life, giving the impression of a wizened greeting party. The island itself is a protected sanctuary, part of the natural heritage of the Ngobe-Bugle indigenous group whose tradition states that the ghosts of their ancestor’s enemies have been turned into these rocky heads.

More:
https://ideas.ted.com/in-search-of-the-rare-and-ridiculously-cute-pygmy-sloth/





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