Not slow cute though.
A Michigan teenage girl has long dreamed of petting an adorable sloth — only for the sleepy-looking critter to violently chew her arm at a pet store event, according to one report.
“It was a blow like a snake,” the girl’s mother, Christina Perez, told mlive.com. “There were two stab wounds and blood running down her arm.”
Perez took her 15-year-old daughter, Amarianna Ramon, to the Custom Creatures pet store in Saginaw Township on Feb. 12 for the “Sloth Encounter Experience,” in which visitors can interact with a two-toed sloth named Sid for $49.99.
The tree-dwelling mammals — which have perpetual grins and are among the slowest-moving critters in the animal kingdom — are Ramon’s “favorite living creature,” Perez said.
But the teen quickly learned the dark side of hanging out 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 gasped a little,” Perez said. “We have to [the] car and she said, ‘I think I’m bleeding. My shirt is wet.”
Perez informed pet store employees about the bite, treated her with antibiotics, and took her to the hospital for preventative rabies treatment.
“She cried for about 24 hours straight,” Perez said, adding that the girl feared the animal would be put down or punished for the bite.
“She was devastated. She was afraid something harmful would happen to this animal,” she said. “It’s so frustrating.”
The pet store owner, Kallan Hohman, said he knew the animal ate the girl, but she didn’t follow instructions.
He said Ramon had gotten too close to Sid and the sloth had mistaken her arm for an apple, according to the outlet.
Saginaw County animal care and control workers visited Custom Creatures to investigate the biting incident on Feb. 14, the outlet reported.
Eventually, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services ordered Sid to be quarantined for 30 days away from people and other animals.
“I saw that Sid was smart, active and alert,” a health department officer wrote on Feb. 24. “The business owner appears to be complying with the quarantine at this time.”
Sloths generally do no harm to humans, but can sometimes attack with their teeth or nails if they feel cornered or threatened.