So renowned for its laziness it was named after one of the seven deadly sins, the hairy charmer now has a cult following, says WILLIAM HARTSTON in a new book

named the sloth after one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but under Buffon’s influence, others followed.

The rehabilitation of sloths began with an aviary in 1990s Costa Rica. Known for caring for injured birds, they were one day brought a damaged baby sloth to look after.

Word got round and more sloths were brought to the Aviarios del Caribe which soon changed its name from an aviary into a Sloth Sanctuary and the growing number of baby sloths being looked after in the room it called its “slothpital”.

The real change in sloth fortunes, however, came with YouTube videos of the Sloth Sanctuary’s animals filmed by documentary film-maker Lucy Cooke.

Suddenly, the world went crazy over sloths. With their permanent smiles and their apparent helplessness, they were suddenly appreciated as the most endearing of creatures. In 2011, Cooke also founded the Sloth Appreciation Society (slothville.com), which now has over 8,000 members worldwide.

Meanwhile, the Florida zoologist Bryson Voirin discovered sloths do not sleep nearly as long as we had thought. Mostly, they just hang motionless but awake. In fact, he assured us, they sleep no more than the average teenager – not lazy good-for-nothings but “masters of an alternative lifestyle”.

THE American actress Kristen Bell fell in love with sloths after seeing those popular YouTube videos but she outdid them in 2012 when she appeared on a US TV chat show and told of the 31st birthday present her boyfriend had given her.

It was a visit by a real live sloth, and when she saw it, she went into complete hysterical meltdown. That was shown on the Ellen DeGeneres show and her hilarious reaction has now been seen by tens of millions of people on YouTube.

Finally. my favourite sloth joke: A sloth was walking along a road when he was set upon by a gang of snails who beat him up, leaving him injured and bleeding in the road.

When he had recovered sufficiently, he crawled to the police station to report the assault. “Can you describe your assailants?” asked the police officer. “Did you get a good look at them?” “No, it all happened so quickly,” the sloth replied.

To order Sloths: A Celebration Of The World’s Most Maligned Mammal, by William Hartston (Atlantic, £12.99), with free UK delivery, call The Express Bookshop on 01872 562310 with card details. Alternatively send a cheque payable to Express Bookshop to Sloths Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth TR11 4WJ. Or buy online at expressbookshop.co.uk