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Slow going: Roger, a two-yearold
two-toed sloth, is one of the 21
animals featured in the “Survival of
the Slowest” exhibit opening at the
Brooklyn Children’s Museum on Oct. 26.
The Brooklyn Children’s Museum
Snooze fest!
See sloths and other sleepy animals at new exhibit
COURIER LIFE, OCTOBER 25-31, 2019 49
SBy Rose Adams low down, you move too
fast!
Brooklynites who
need to make the morning last
can take a lesson from a new
exhibit coming to the Brooklyn
Children’s Museum on Oct. 26.
“Survival of the Slowest ” will
feature about two dozen slowmoving
creatures who have
turned their lack of get-up-andgo
into a virtue — including a
creature named for the laziest
of the Seven Deadly Sins: the
sloth!
A two-year-old, two-toed
sloth named Roger will live at the
museum during the three-monthlong
exhibit, and professionals
will remove him from his case
three times a day to demonstrate
his extraordinary slow-moving
abilities, which, according to
a staffer at the museum, are
remarkable.
“He sleeps about 16 hours per
day,” said Winston Williams.
“They’re just unbelievably slow.
They move about 40 meters in a
day. It would take them 45 days to
cross the Brooklyn Bridge.”
The exhibit will feature plenty
of other sleepy animals, including
an iguana named Lizarnardo
DaVinci, a chameleon named
Chamuel L. Jackson, and two
tarantulas named Fuzz Lightyear
and Spinderella — along with
a handful of other, equally
amusingly named chilled-out
critters, including tortoises,
hedgehogs, and snakes. The
animals will be displayed in 19
distinct glass habitats, much like
they are in zoos, and youngsters
will be able to observe them
up close during multiple daily
demonstrations.
The museum will explore how
these animals work their extreme
slowness to their advantage, said
Williams.
“The exhibit kind of explores
how all these animals who you
wouldn’t necessarily choose to
evolve as, who are slow, how some
of them have taken advantage of
that,” Williams said.
Sloths, for example, blend
into their environment and only
have to consume a few hundred
calories a day — and sometimes,
the lazy mammals move so
gradually that food comes to
them.
“Algae grows on the sloth
because they’re so slow, they lick
it, and it produces fats,” Williams
said.
The exhibit, produced in
collaboration with an animal
education center in Canada called
Little Ray’s Nature Centres,
is the first of its kind in the
United States, although it made
its Canadian debut in 2018.
The exhibit will offer Brooklyn
children a rare opportunity to see
exotic animals in the flesh, said
Williams.
“We’re really excited about
the exhibit,” he said. “It’s going to
be many people’s first experience
with these animals up close.”
“Survival of the Slowest” at
the Brooklyn Children’s Museum
145 Brooklyn Ave. between St.
Mark’s Avenue and Prospect
Place in Crown Heights, (718)
735–4400. www.brooklynkids.
org. Oct. 26–Feb. 2. Open Tue,
Wed, Fri, 10 am–5 pm; Thu, 10
am–6 pm; Sat–Sun, 10 am–7 pm.
$13.
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