6 of The Slowest Animals On The Planet

Have you been watching too many agile and fast moving predators chasing after dinner in those wildlife shows? Well, here’s a little change of pace. Although most animals would prefer to be able to move fast, especially when it’s time to run or chase after food, not all animals are built to speed. Here are some of the slowest animals in the wild.

Garden Snail

No surprise here. The award for slowest moving creature in the planet goes to the garden snail. They’re a specie of land snail that’s very common, so common in fact you could just find them in your garden. They move at a speed of 1.3 cm per second, which is roughly around 78 cm a minute or 47 meters an hour.

Sloth

They’re cute, but they’re very slow. Sloths actually got their name from their slowness. They can move to around 2 meters per minute. They spend most of their time on top of trees in the wild where they are less vulnerable, feeding on fruits and nuts, so you’d usually never see these guys on the ground.

Starfish

You wouldn’t expect these beautiful creatures to move, but they actually have tiny tentacles that help them go from point A to point B at a distance of 15 cm in a minute. Starfishes move around the sea floor looking for food or a place they can hide. If they stay too close to the shore, the need to move to the water when the tide goes down to avoid getting too dry.

Giant Tortoise

Not only are they slow, they also live for a very long time. Giant tortoises are said to have a lifespan of about 200 years, so they’re never in a hurry. They can also get pretty heavy, reaching a weight of 300 kg when they mature.

Koala Bear

Koala Bears are one of the most adorable animals on the plant. But be warned, they can get a bit aggressive and even bit or urinate on you. Thankfully, they move very slowly, so don’t expect to get chased away by one.

Slug

What seems to look like a homeless snail is actually an animal of its own. Slugs are slimy little animals that more at a maximum speed of 0.3 km/h. Like snails, they also leave a train of slime along the way. One of the most amazing features that slugs have is their amazing, vibrant colors.

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The Sloth

As the sloth’s popularity as a mainstay children’s favorite is argued to have been jump started by the Ice Age series of movies, the sloth’s reputation for being slow has long been established by naturalists, researchers and scientists, defining them as one of the more unique creatures in the world.

Sid, the prehistoric sloth appearing in the 2006 released Ice Age: The Meltdown and all the other Ice Age films, continues to be the champion character representing sloths, with his silly antics and witty banter brought to life by voice-actor John Leguizamo.

Though it has to be said that Sid, as a sloth, is different from the sloths found in Central and South America, his quirky physical characteristics and attributes have made today’s sloths well loved by children and households because of him.

However, given Ice Age’s prehistoric inclinations, it has to be said that Sid belongs to the prehistoric class of ground dwelling sloths which used to dominate the sloth population in the past. Today’s sloths are different by being predominantly arboreal, meaning they are often found as tree dwelling creatures.

Spending most of their days above ground, today’s sloths have somewhat evolved for “tree-based” survival, with their furs growing far from their extremities, in allowing them to readily move up on canopies using their limbs.

Though they don’t really spend all of their lives up on trees, sloths are known to only go down to the ground when the “call of nature” requires them to, typically only having to go only once in a week.

Bearing their cuddly form factors, there really is no mystery as to why sloths have been well loved as furry creatures. Though keeping one as a pet remains to be subject to different environmental and legal grounds, they are still valued by children as dream pets to have at home.

The Sloth Video

 

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