Art:Underwater Sea Sloth
- This article is an entry in the Piratical Guide to Oceanic Life muse game.
Underwater Sea Sloth (Submarine Sloth, Seabed Sloth)
An astoundingly boring fellow with an improbable taste for adventure, the sea sloth trudges great lengths across the seabed, apparently just to breathe someone else's air. No other beast rivals the sea sloth in circulatory efficiency or the squandering thereof.
Sucking in huge, chest-puffing gulps of oxygen, facing the sea, and shutting his eyes tight, the sea sloth begins a sea-spanning, linear journey of blind repitition. Tracking miles across varied and wondrous submarine terrain, the sea sloth trudges in unfathomable ignorance. Perhaps this is all part of Nature's plan, as the sloth's brain seems in near hibernation for the duration.
Every few weeks, the sea sloth shuffles some mollusks off the sandy bottom and cracks them open with its powerful, albeit less than speedy, claws. In its sleep-walking state, this might be considered sleep-eating. The various detritus of this shambling snack are sucked from the sloth's toes by the contrastingly flighty Muck-Eating Minnow, who perhaps sees something of her mate in the sea sloth's lethargic lifestyle.
Finally, after as long as a year of fanatically, deliberately boring travel, the sea sloth gradually emerges on the sea's opposite shore. Once completing an entirely understandable exhale, the sea sloth opens its salt-crusted eyes and takes its first look at this foreign land. Then it sighs, sucks down a fresh load of oxygen and turns back to the sea. Truly awesome creatures.
Studies have yet to reveal any information on the sea sloth's mating behavior, but if history is any indicator, it must be fantastically boring. Astonishingly, the sea sloth has no known predators. It appears the creature is so pitiable that no other beast on land or sea has the heart to harrass it. Even the famed Voracious Maw will turn up its evil nose at such an unfortunate meal.
Never has a wandering wonder been so wonderless.
