Bean, the 6-year-old Hoffman’s two-toed sloth at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, died recently after a short illness.

Bean, born in May 2019, died Wednesday after being diagnosed one week earlier with kidney disease. A necropsy, or an animal autopsy, found that she also had heart disease. Bean’s trainers said they remember her as one of the most intelligent, self-aware and mischievous sloths they have ever met.

Those who worked closely with Bean in her habitat in The Loft said she left a legacy, imprinting herself on zoo visitors with her quirky and extroverted personality, Rachel Wright, communications director at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, said.

“Bean was part of countless marriage proposals, birthdays, anniversaries and just-because special encounters inside and outside of The Loft,” Wright said in a news release. “She had an endearing mischievous and adventurous side, but her keepers will remember her as focused, self-aware and incredibly intelligent.”

Bean was the first sloth born at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in 15 years, Wright said, and she immediately made a lasting impression on visitors, “eager” to be fed grapes by anyone willing, in her first few months of life.

Bean’s extroverted personality only grew from there, Wright said, and when she reached maturity and was moved to The Loft, she was known to drop from the rafters and “snag a hat or two.”

“Sloths have a reputation for being slow, but Bean was pretty fast when she wanted to be,” Jackie Watson, senior animal keeper in The Loft, said. “I loved when she’d climb right in front of our ‘Welcome to The Loft’ sign, like she was our guests’ official welcome sloth.”

Wright said Bean’s intelligence was “groundbreaking:” She knew how to get in a crate voluntarily, position herself for health checks and was “close to perfecting a cooperative blood draw,” which was unheard of in sloth care, to her care team’s knowledge.

Bean also picked up a hobby during her short life: she had “perfected” painting, Wright said. Trainers taught Bean how to paint with a brush on a canvas, and visitors even bought her art, supporting animal care at the zoo.

“When she first moved to The Loft, I started training her to paint so we had more opportunities to bond,” Cassie Spero, senior animal keeper in The Loft, said. “A couple of months later, she was swiping a paint brush on canvases, my hands and often her face.”

During her final week of life, staff noticed that Bean was not being her charismatic self, and had lost her appetite, Wright said. She was taken to the zoo’s veterinary hospital, where she was diagnosed with kidney disease. Under the veterinarian’s care, her kidney levels had improved by Wednesday, but she died unexpectedly that evening.

Bean is survived by her father, Bosco, 33, half-sister Olive, 9 months, and Olive’s mom, Asyan, 10.