WHEN YOU
LOOK
Western Bluebird
The Significance of The Great Ground Sloth
When you look at the ground sloth, you see an invisible barrier.
The Ground Sloth
The ground sloth, also known as the Megatherium americanum, is an ancient Ice Age animal that was around 10 feet tall and weighted over a ton. They were enormous, monstrous creatures that were roaming the Earth about 11,000 to 12,000 years ago. They went extinct because of the Ice Age ending. Since the end of the Ice Age, humans have gone to North America. Then suddenly, these creatures were gone. Humans hunted them until they went extinct. After their extinction came the well known two-toed and three-toed sloths.
A Sloth’s Biodiverse Ecosystem
Up to a thousand organisms live on the sloth. Moths, beetles, fungi, algae, and arthropods live inside the fur of the tree sloths. Some of these organisms could benefit the sloth, such as algae. So much algae grows on the sloth’s fur that it forms a type of camouflage to help them stay away from the eyes of a potential threat, such as a predator or a hunter. Algae provides them with a nutritional food source as well. Although some organisms could not be so beneficial, such as the arthropods. They are mosquitoes, tics, mites, and lice that suck the blood of the sloth. This led me to think about humans, and how we are like the organisms that live on the sloth. Though, humans do so much worse to the Earth than what these organisms do to the sloth. Humans don’t provide many beneficial factors to the Earth; instead, humans provide it with greenhouse gases and large amounts of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.
The Mapinguari
The mapinguari is a mythical beast that comes from Brazilian folklore. The ancestors of the native people of the Amazon described it as an ogre or cyclops when they would tell their stories. It’s a creature with one eye and a huge mouth on its stomach, but really it was just a giant ground sloth. This beast was known to be a protector and guardian for the Brazilian Amazon. The mapinguari would kill and eat the stubborn hunters that disrespected the forest. Indigenous Amazonians believed that this supernatural creature gave them wisdom and knowledge. They recently lost most of their ancestral forests due to the modern world demanding Amazonian products, such as timber and oil. Since these forests are gone, the natives believe that most of the mapinguaries disappeared and hid away from the chainsaws that would chop down the trees. There are no creatures to protect the forests anymore.
The Sin of Sloth
Sloth is one of the most dangerous of the seven deadly sins. Laziness is one the biggest reasons our climate is getting worse. It makes us blind to what is really happening to our world. Laziness pushes us down without us even realizing it. The push is invisible to us, but it is not invisible to the people or to the animals that live on this Earth. That push is putting those people and animals in danger. It’s simple to think that we all struggle with some sort of laziness in our lives, with either not wanting to clean our room or not wanting to get up for school. Though, those are just the little things. Looking at the big picture is being able to see that if we let our laziness consume us, we won’t be able to escape what is to come. There is no time to be lazy anymore. It is time to get up and act.
