Is exceedingly slow:
Slower than turtles or snails.
But its habits are strange,
It acts as if deranged,
And to explain them, he fails.
Every week he comes down
From his tree, to the ground,
To deposit a pile of manure;
And the strange moths that ride,
On the sloth's furry hide
Have a chance to mate and mature.
The larvae think good
Manure is fine food,
And when they grow up into moths,
They fly up, up high,
And then, bye and bye,
They find their new home: a sloth...
It can't be, of course,
That the animal does
Acts strange, just his tenants to please:
He must benefits gain,
Though the reason's not plain,
To face danger, descending the trees.
Now science has found
The reason profound
For the sloths most unusual ways:
The moths in his hide
Conditions provide
For algae to grow and to stay.
For the sloth, it's a treat
The algae to eat,
And to carry its food on his back.
He moves not at all,
When hunger pains call,
For daily on algae to snack...
And it does seem involved
That Nature does solved
Such a weird combination of ways,
But the algae, the sloth,
And his wandering moths,
All seem to like it OK...