A Costa Rican man traveling to Sixaola, a town on the southern Caribbean coast, aided a sloth who was attempting to cross the main drag into town.

“We were arriving in Sixaola … and saw a sloth was crossing the street. A Dos Pinos delivery truck was headed right towards it, so I jumped out of the car, and helped it across the street, and then the critter posed for the photo,” said Yeraldo Agüero.

The sloth definitely appears to be posing in the photo and giving a high-five of thanks to his helper, Yeraldo Agüero

 

Sixaola is a small town in Talamanca in the Atlantic coast province of Limón, Costa Rica. The town is located on the Sixaola River which forms the Costa Rica-Panama border. Highway 36 ends in Sixaola, which is right across the river from Guabito, Panama. Both towns consist of homes, banana farms, and small businesses for locals.

The town of Sixaola is 49 km (30 mi) south of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, known locally as Puerto Viejo. Puerto Viejo is a tourist destination on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast.

Of the five sloth species occurring in Costa Rica, there are two main families: two-toed and three-toed sloths. They are very slow movers and spend most of their lives in trees, where they feed on leaves. Their metabolism is so low it causes them to move slowly and have a low body temperature. The best place to find sloths is to look out for the distinctive Cecropia trees, called “guarumos” in Costa Rica, or other large-leaved trees. You can find them hanging out upside down in such trees when they aren’t switching trees, which happens every 2-3 days.

But it is anyone’s guess why this sloth was crossing the road in Sixaola, Thankfully this visitor was at the right place at the right time and came to its aid.