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Animals That Move Slowly

Slow-moving animals may be lethargic in their movement to conserve energy, or they may have heavy shells that hinder their movement but offer protection from predators. Slow-moving mammals are typically arboreal and feed on leaves; because their food source doesn't move, they in turn can afford to move slowly. They often have low metabolisms, and they may also have less muscle mass, making them lighter. This gives them the advantage of being able to climb higher than other animals that are searching for the same food and water resources.

Low-Speed Mammals
- The slowest mammal is the sloth, which comes in two- and three-toed varieties. Sloths eat, sleep and mate while hanging upside down from tree branches. They conserve energy by maintaining a low body temperature and low muscle mass, as well as by spending most of their time sleeping. Sloths even digest food slowly -- it can take as long as a month for them to digest a meal. The slow loris is another slow-moving mammal; this small primate is rarely observed outside the rain forest canopies where it lives. The marsupial koala, another slow-moving creature, also spends much of its time sitting in trees.
Mollusks and Sea Creatures
- Many of the 50,000 known mollusk species are slow movers. The gastropods -- among them snails, slugs and limpets -- creep around on a "stomach foot," a muscular projection from their ventral side. Some gastropods live in the ocean, while others have adapted to live on the land. Chitons live in the ocean in the intertidal zone and crawl around in a similar fashion; in a given year, a chiton might move less than 3 meters (10 feet). Sea horses basically float along in the current, and some sea creatures spend their entire adult lives anchored to one spot.
Playing the Heavy
- Turtles and tortoises are generally slow-moving reptiles, in part due to the heavy shells that they carry around. These creatures have slow metabolisms to match their slow movement and can live for more than 100 years. Turtles and tortoises can swim quickly -- hundreds of kilometers over the course of a few days -- and can run on land if necessary. Tortoises typically move more slowly than turtles.
Tiny Tardigrada
- An animal phylum called Tardigrada contains more than 400 species of invertebrates that move slowly. Tardigrades grow to only about a millimeter long, so their slow movement is difficult to see, but they lumber along on eight clumsy legs like bears. In fact, one species of Tardigrade is known as the water bear due to its resemblance. Tardigrades are aquatic animals; they require a thin film of water at minimum to keep from desiccating.

Animals & Science