ATLANTA — The baby sloth at Zoo Atlanta needs a name, and you’re invited to pick one.
A Hoffman's two-toed sloth, the infant was born four months ago, and the zoo's "sloth team" has picked out six names to choose from.
The zoo isn’t revealing whether the sloth is male or female, but there are names to suit both sexes among the possibilities.
The choices are Blossom, Fern, Willow, Bean, Clyde and Rio.
Sloth-watchers are invited to go online to vote for their favorites. Online voting is open until 11:45 p.m. Sunday, March 10.
The winning name (and the little creature’s sex) will be announced at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, March 19, on Zoo Atlanta’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages.
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Bonnie, the baby’s mother, and Cocoa, the baby’s father, have another offspring, an older sister named Raisin, born in 2015. Raisin currently lives in another zoo.
Mother, baby, and another adult female, Okra Mae, are resting in an indoor area behind the scenes, and are not on exhibit. Visitors to the zoo will be able to see the infant some time in the spring, as temperatures warm up.
Cocoa can be seen in the zoo’s Brazilian Outpost area.
Sloths are slow, but sloth babies grow quickly.
After almost a year inside the womb, newborn sloths have fully-developed claws for clinging to their mothers, plus teeth for chomping on solid food within two weeks of birth.
They may continue to remain with or near their mothers for around a year.
Hoffmann’s two-toed sloths are native to Central and South America. They are not classified as endangered, but their populations are threatened by habitat destruction and the pet trade.
[ This article was written by Bo Emerson, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. ]