“Life in the Sloth Lane: Slow Down and Smell the Hibiscus,” by Lucy Cooke, is published by Workman Publishing.

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What’s a person to do when she’s accumulated hundreds of endearing photos of her favorite mammal, the sloth?

If you’re British filmmaker, photographer and zoologist Lucy Cooke, you put together a cute and colorful book pairing those photos with short, inspirational quotes.

In her new book, “Life in the Sloth Lane: Slow Down and Smell the Hibiscus,” most of the quotes tout the benefits of being mellow and taking things slow — two things sloths appear to be really good at.

Sloths don’t really have a choice to be any other way than the way they are, but people do, and Cooke points out that being somewhat sloth-like is not a bad way to be.

“Sloths are Nature’s Zen masters of mellow,” writes Cooke.

Crack open almost any page of the book and you’ll see one of Cooke’s sloth photos and an accompanying quote from such noted individuals as Winston Churchill, Oprah, Deepak Chopra and Emily Dickinson, to name a few.

There’s an Andy Rooney quote, “If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it,”  paired with a photo of a sloth who appears to be smiling.

Actually, because sloths have upturned mouths, almost all of them look as if they’re smiling even when no one else is around, which adds to their relaxed, mellow-like appearance.  

The photo/quote pages are interspersed with occasional pages of facts about the sloth.

For instance, perhaps you did not know that:

• Sloths eat 160 calories a day on a diet of leaves. Their only indulgence is an occasional hibiscus flower, which is like chocolate to them.

• They are found only in Central and South America.

• Three-toed sloths have no sweat glands.

• Two-toed sloths have some sweat glands on their snout but not on their feet. If they had sweat glands on their feet, they could slip off trees.

• Sloths are incapable of going faster than 1 mph.

• Sloths sleep, eat and give birth upside down.

• The body temperature of a sloth is the lowest of all mammals.

• Surprisingly, they are excellent swimmers.

So can we really learn from the sloth? Cooke thinks so.

“I believe their laid-back lifestyle has much to teach the human race,” she writes in the book. 

Cooke, who has been called “the Steven Spielberg of sloth filmmaking,” is also author of “A Little Book of Sloth.” She is the founder of the Sloth Appreciation Society.

“Life in the Sloth Lane: Slow Down and Smell the Hibiscus,” by Lucy Cooke is a 140-page hardcover book published by Workman Publishing Company. Cost is $12.95.