Review and photographs by Suspsy; edited by bmathison1972
The word “sloth” means slowness, laziness, indolence, or a habitual disinclination to exertion, and looking at the arboreal South American mammals called sloths, one might think that they fit their name to a tee. But while sloths are indeed slow-moving, they are not at all lazy. They have simply evolved a slow and deliberate lifestyle in response to their very low-energy diet of leaves.
A two-toed sloth is included in Safari’s 2017 assortment. More specifically, this is Hoffmann’s two-toed sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni). It’s something of a misnomer, as two-toed sloths possess three toes on their hind feet, but only two on their hands, as plainly seen on this figure. It is sculpted sitting upright with its arms and legs folded, almost as if it was sitting around a campfire and telling a tall tale. This makes it a bit over 6 cm in height.
The sloth’s main colours are muddy brown and green with a white-streaked head, black eyes, and beige claws with dark grey tips. Like all sloths, Hoffmann’s sloth is so slow-moving that algae ends up growing in its fur, hence the green tinges. This algae is a benefit, however, as it helps camouflage the sloth from its predators, and provides nutrients when food is in short supply.
The fur covering the sloth’s entire body has a nice thick and flowing texture to it, although there is a visible seam around the pelvis. The head has the correct shape and the limbs are long and tapering. And the most fun feature about this toy is that, thanks to its pose, it can hang upside down from one’s finger just like a real two-toed sloth! Or, if you’re into creating dioramas for your animal figures, you could mount your sloth hanging from a tree branch in the jungle. Indeed, a sloth’s claws are so effective at enabling it to hang from a branch, that when it dies, its corpse remains hanging from the branch until all that is left is a skeleton!
Overall, the Safari two-toed sloth is a very nice toy with strong potential for play or display. Certainly worth acquiring for one’s jungle menagerie.
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I missed this figure the first time around because I didn’t know at the time it was a different species than the Mojo two-toed. It is on my ‘Missed Figures’ list to eventually acquire 🙂