There are no animals more or less capable than the others: each one has its own characteristics and some certainly do not have the particularity of being fast , but actually dominate the ranking of the slowest animals in the world . So let’s find out what they are and how they survive despite their slowness.
The slowest animals in the world and how they survive
Whether due to physical quirks or skill or lack of necessity, these animals move so slowly that they are perhaps famous for this feature . Surely on more than one occasion you have used the expression “it is slower than a snail ” or that it moves “like a turtle.” So here are the slowest animals in the world and how they survive.
Why is an animal slow?
We do not necessarily have to consider the slowness as a defect: in some cases, the lack of speed can also be exploited to its own advantage. In fact, without running these animals save energy, tire less and reserve all their strength for extremely important activities. Here are the slowest animals in the world and the ‘speeds’ they can reach.
The corals
Fascinating creatures that don’t even look like animals. They remain almost immobile given their slow speed of movement, so it is actually a bit like they are “off the charts” because they don’t move so that is how they somehow go “unnoticed” by many marine species that could end up before with them if they moved.
Lazy
In the first place among the animals that «move» (unlike corals) we find this living being, which became famous thanks to the animated film «Madagascar». This living being transmits slowness just by looking at it: it is no coincidence that it is often associated with sleepy people, not very active and with little desire to move. This slowness is also due to some physical ‘peculiarities’: it does not have a very developed sight (in fact it is myopic), as well as smell and hearing . So his slowness is probably also due to his distrust of everything around him. The maximum speed reached is 0.20 km / h.
Unfortunately, there are few specimens in the world that live in trees and that hardly move and it is thanks to their slow movements and the color of their fur that they go completely unnoticed by their predators.
snail
According to others, the snail is competing for the first place with the sloth. It moves at 50 meters per hour . It is a terrestrial mollusk, typical for its spiral shell and obviously for its slowness. We will probably notice that there is a snail in the same place as the day before. They prefer Mediterranean wetlands, they sleep in a very long hibernation and move with muscle contractions of up to 0.050 km / h. They live in the garden and like to be in the shade. It feeds on fruits, cereals, tree bark and flowers . It is hermaphroditic, so that a single snail has both female and male reproductive organs.
Tortoise
The average speed of a turtle allows it to travel 350 meters per hour. Compared to land turtles, sea turtles travel 40 meters in an hour, earning them the title of slowest reptile in the world. Perhaps because they are so slow and because they barely move, they survive so long, although some specimens have exceeded 150 years.
Koala
These nocturnal marsupials are certainly among the slowest mammals in the world. They love to take refuge in the trees in Australia, and although they are adept at jumping from tree to tree, they rarely make this effort. Its maximum speed is 20 km / h . They love to live at night and do it in addition from tree to tree so that their slow movements, their fur and their nocturnal activity make them almost “invisible” to predators.
Seahorse
The seahorse is also one of the slowest animals in the world since its morphology means that they can only swim vertically so that their movements and speed are greatly reduced. However, despite its limitations and small size, it ingests large amounts of food, mainly plankton, crustaceans or shrimp. Unfortunately it is very threatened by the destruction of its habitat and due to trafficking for its use in traditional Chinese medicine.
