By Khalida Sarwari
The Saratoga Library is known for its excellent collection of books, but on a late July afternoon, it was also the place to check out rainforest inhabitants. The show-stealing creatures were a scarlet macaw, a sloth, a lizard and an anteater.
More than 100 people attended the library’s wildlife program, and many of them walked out of the community room with a little more knowledge about the animals than when they walked in.
Sixth-grader Shreya Mani of Saratoga learned that the poor hygiene habits of the sloth are actually beneficial to the animals. Because the creatures spend up to 20 hours a day sleeping, their fur often collects small moths, beetles and even algae, which camouflages them against predators in the forest.
“Flies buzz around the sloth,” she said. “Nobody wants to eat them because they’re dirty.”
For Grace Stuart, a fifth-grader at Saratoga Elementary School, seeing an anteater in person was the best part of the program.
“It looked really cute,” she said. “It just looked funny.”
The program was presented by WildLIFE Associates, a nonprofit education group based in Half Moon Bay. The organization has given presentations at the Saratoga Library for many years, wildlife manager Michele Ortega said.
At the end of the hourlong program, Ortega replied to a question from a 4-year-old girl: “If it’s raining all the time in the forest, does that mean it’s always muddy on the ground for the animals?”
It was an impressive question, Ortega said, because it indicated an advanced thought process for a child that young.
Visit wildlifeassociates.org for more information about WildLIFE Associates.
