Meet the giant ground sloth; Megatherium, that once roamed through South America
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| Modern sloth |
Modern sloths are kind of cute and live in trees. They are slow and eat only vegetation, like all sloths ancient and modern. But ancient ground sloths, called Megatherium, were much much larger, up to 12 feet tall. They walked on both two legs like humans and at times on all four. They were the largest bipedal, two-legged, creatures to walk the earth. Megatherium roamed across South America during the Early Pliocene epoch around 5 million years ago through the end of the Pleistocene period 11,700 years ago.
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| Megatherium |
Scientists continue to find megatherium fossils in Argentina and in neighboring countries such as Paraguay. Although these beasts were really huge and had tremendous claws, used for pulling down trees, they were vegetarians. In fact, ancient American Indians hunted and ate these large mammals.
There were many interesting ancient animals that roamed our planet in the distant past. Megatherium was one of the more peaceful and pleasant ones. To learn more about megatherium and to look at some of the fossils in 3D see the links below:
Question: Would you like to try a megatherium-burger?
SOUTH AMERICAN SCIENTISTS UNEARTH SKULL OF ANCIENT 12-FOOT-TALL GROUND SLOTH
Paleontologists Find 3.58-Million-Year-Old Ground Sloth Fossil
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| Megatherium |
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