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Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. They varied widely in size with the largest, belonging to genera Lestodon, Eremotherium and Megatherium, being around the size of elephants. Ground sloths represent a paraphyletic group, as living tree sloths are thought to have evolved from ground sloth ...
In many species of Megatherium, the lower jaw is relatively deep, which served to accommodate the very long hypselodont (evergrowing) teeth, [20] which are considerably proportionally longer than those of other ground sloths. Like other ground sloths, the number of teeth in the jaw is reduced to 5 and 4 teeth in each half of the upper and lower ...
Megalonyx (Greek, "great-claw") is an extinct genus of ground sloths of the family Megalonychidae, native to North America.It evolved during the Pliocene Epoch and became extinct at the end of the Late Pleistocene, living from ~5 million to ~13,000 years ago. [3]
Eremotherium (from Greek for "steppe" or "desert" "beast": ἔρημος "steppe or desert" and θηρίον "beast") is an extinct genus of giant ground sloth in the family Megatheriidae. Eremotherium lived in southern North America, Central America, and northern South America from the Pliocene , around 5.3 million years ago, to the end of the ...
Here's a cool fact from The Sloth Conservation Foundation: without sloths there wouldn't be any avocados. "The extinct giant ground sloths were some of the only mammals that had digestive systems ...
The giant ground sloth – a large herbivore which was endemic to the Americas – is another. We can study these extinct animals from their bones – but also from the preserved footprints they ...
Mylodon is an extinct genus of ground sloth belonging to the family Mylodontidae, known from southern South America.With a total length of 3 to 4 m and a body mass of 1-2 tonnes, it is one of the largest mylodontids (though it was considerably exceeded in size by the mylodontid Lestodon).
Some of the most tantalizing clues come from an archaeological site in central Brazil, called Santa Elina, where bones of giant ground sloths show signs of being manipulated by humans. Sloths like these once lived from Alaska to Argentina, and some species had bony structures on their backs, called osteoderms — a bit like the plates of modern ...