Not slow cute after all.
A teenage girl from Michigan had long dreamed of petting an adorable sloth — only for the sleepy-looking critter to violently chomp down on her arm at a pet store event, according to a report.
“It was a strike like a snake,” the girl’s mom, Christina Perez, told mlive.com. “There were two puncture wounds and blood running down her arm.”
Perez took her 15-year-old daughter, Amarianna Ramon, to Custom Creatures pet shop in Saginaw Township on Feb. 12 for its “Sloth Encounter Experience,” in which visitors can interact with a two-toed sloth named Sid for $49.99.
The tree-dwelling mammals — which have a perpetual grin and are among the animal kingdom’s slowest-moving critters — are Ramon’s “favorite living creature,” Perez said.
But the teen quickly learned the dark side of hanging with a sloth when she entered his enclosure to feed him apple slices and he bit her upper right arm through her shirt, Perez said.
“She kind of gasped,” Perez said. “We got to [the] car and she said, ‘I think I’m bleeding. My shirt is wet.”
Perez informed workers at the pet shop about the bite, treated her with antibiotics and took her to the hospital for preventative rabies treatment.
“She cried for like 24 hours straight,” Perez said, adding that the girl feared the animal would be put down or punished over the bite.
“She was devastated. She was afraid something detrimental going to happen to this animal,” she said. “It’s so frustrating.”
The pet store’s owner, Kallan Hohman, said he was aware the animal had chomped down on the girl — but that she was not following instructions.
He said that Ramon had gotten too close to Sid and that the sloth had mistaken her arm for an apple, according to the outlet.
The Saginaw County Animal Care & Control officers visited Custom Creatures to investigate the biting incident on Feb 14, the outlet reported.
Ultimately, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services ordered Sid quarantined away from people and other animals for 30 days.
“I observed Sid to be bright, active, and alert,” a health department officer wrote on Feb. 24. “Business owner appears to be in compliance with the quarantine at this time.”
Sloths generally pose no harm to people but can sometimes attack with their teeth or nails if they feel cornered or threatened.
By: Ny Post
