Lorises Are Terrifying

Wednesday, 13th May 2009

You may or may not know of Sonya, the tickle-loving Loris.

She is becoming something of an internet superstar and has a number of videos taken by her Russian owners (it is legal to own Loris as pets in Russia).
I am not going into the wrongs and rights of Loris-as-pet ownership here (hint: taking Loris from the wild is massively cruel. Massively cruel), but Sonya "appears" to be happy and treated well by a loving family.

After being sent this video by a friend and being informed that she is a Slow Loris, I investigated this crazy Sloth-like primate.
It turns out, despite them being slow, deliberate and exceptionally cute creatures who are unable to move their eyes and have to move their entire heads to see, they're actually pretty badass. I am going to leave it to Dr Brian Greig Fry, a man who milks the poison from the most poisonous snakes in the world, to explain:

However, while they have the face of those cute and cuddly gremlins, they have the attitude of the evil, after-midnight flipside. With disproportionately huge and sharp canine teeth (very fang-like) and powerful jaw muscles their bites alone can be absolutely agonising. However, the pain is compounded by factors beyond the simple tissue trauma caused by the mechanical damage from the powerful jaws. The lorises are actually toxic! On the inside of their elbows, sebaceous tissue secretes a toxin (like sweat pores, which is rather fitting since the toxic mixture smells remarkably like sweaty socks). The lorises take it into their mouth and deliver it in the bite. It is not the upper and lower jaw vampire like canine teeth that deliver this toxin. It is the innocuously small teeth in the front of the lower jaw which slope forward and help conduct the saliva into the wound.
Dr Brian Greig Fry, Kingsnake > Toxinology > Slow Loris

Watch the video again and I defy you to see Sonya as poor little Gizmo attempting to stem the flood of evil post-midnight monsters.