Not slow cute after all.
A Michigan teenager had long dreamed of petting an adorable sloth – only to have the sleepy creature violently chew her arm at a pet store event, according to a report.
“It was a snake strike,” the girl’s mother, Christina Perez, told mlive.com. “There were two puncture wounds and blood was running down his arm.”
Perez took his 15-year-old daughter, Amarianna Ramon, to the Custom Creatures pet store 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.
Tree-dwelling mammals — which have a perpetual grin and are among the slowest-moving creatures in the animal kingdom — are Ramon’s “favorite living creature,” Perez said.
But the teenager quickly learned the dark side of hanging with a sloth when she entered his enclosure to feed him apple slices and he bit his right upper arm through his shirt, a said Perez.
“She sort of gasped,” Perez said. “We arrived at [the] car and she said, ‘I think I’m bleeding. My shirt is wet.
Perez told pet store workers about the bite, treated her with antibiotics and took her to the hospital for preventive 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 that something detrimental would happen to this animal,” she said. “It’s so frustrating.”
Pet store owner Kallan Hohman said he knew the animal had gnawed on the girl, but she was not following instructions.
He said Ramon got too close to Sid and the sloth mistook his arm for an apple, according to the outlet.
Saginaw County Animal Care and 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 that Sid be 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. “The business owner appears to be in compliance with quarantine at this time.”
Sloths generally do no harm to people, but can sometimes attack with their teeth or nails if they feel cornered or threatened.