About this journal

Two animals, chosen for being opposites and being right about it. Dragonflies are the best aerial predators that have ever existed: four independently driven wings, near-spherical vision, a 95 percent hunting success rate, and a design that has been in production for around 300 million years.

Sloths went the other way. Faced with a diet of leaves, they cut their metabolic rate to roughly 40 percent of what their body size predicts, grew a coat that farms algae and houses moths, and turned patience into a survival strategy that has also lasted a very long time.

This site currently holds 6 dragonfly species files and 6 sloth species files, plus posts that cite them. Every post shows two reading times: the normal one, and the sloth estimate, which is ten times longer and generally more honest.

Running the blog

Posts, categories, tags, species files and comments are all edited through the Django admin. Sign in there to publish, feature a post on the homepage, approve or hide comments, or add a new species with its own numbers.