Taking a shit is one of the small joys in life.
Unless you've had a curry the night before or you're suffering from constipation, there's never a time when dropping the kids off at the pool isn't enjoyable.
From the clean poo to the wet poo to the poo that makes you feel like you've just lost four stone in one fell swoop of your anus, they're all great.
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I don't have a girlfriend myself, but I also know of some lads who like to use decimating the toilet bowl as a way of having themselves a little alone time. You know, catch up on the group chat, have a sift through some dross on Twitter and, of course, seeing what all the Instagram models have been up to without any prying eyes.
Now, going off on a slight tangent that I promise will come back around again, sloths don't have it so easy. There have been times when I look at the life of a sloth and I wonder whether I'd be happier moving at a top speed of six centimetres per second and spending all day sleeping in a tree.
Credit: PA
Then I found out about their shitting habits and it made me really happy to be human.
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Apparently sloths only unleash brown hell-fire once a week and it is nothing short of a terrifying ordeal.
Taking a shit once a week means a sloth can lose up to A THIRD of their body weight in one sitting. For a human that's like losing just more than a leg a week in smelly fudge IN ONE GO!!! How much would that hurt firing out, seriously?
Not only is it a physical strain for a sloth but a mental one, too. Given they spend most of their lives hidden in trees, coming down for a dump puts them in serious danger of being killed by predators (they can only travel at 6cm per second tops remember, so a wild carnivorous baby could probably do some damage).
Credit: Nicolas Huskar/PA
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Imagine relieving yourself of a week's worth of mud bunnies only for it to be the last thing you ever do. On second thoughts that actually might be a decent way to go... anyway, I digress.
Given how dangerous taking a dump is for a sloth, naturally it's not something that's spotted all too often by human eyes. Or cameras.
But Washington Post science reporter Jason Bittel was lucky (or unlucky, I really don't know) to be at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh at the same time as a sloth was relieving himself in the arms of a carer.
So, without further ado, I cordially invite you to watch the rare moment a sloth unleashes the kraken...
Credit: The Washington Post
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You're probably not wondering why sloths need to climb down trees and into danger to take a poo, rather why that sloth's poo looked like Daenarys Targaryen's dragon eggs, but I'm going to tell you anyway.
Credit: HBO
According to a study from Proceedings of the Royal Society back in 2014, apparently sloths always unleash chocolate thunder near their own tree because moths lay eggs on it. Then these moths land on the sloth themselves along with algae-friendly nutrients, helping algae to grow on the sloths which then keep them green and camouflaged.
I never thought the day would come when I was actually enthusiastic about sloth shit but here I am anyway.
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Words by George Pavlou, sloth shit enthusiast
Featured image credit: PA
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