Ground sloths were large herbivores with sharp claws and thick skin that lived from the Oligocene to 1550 AD in the Caribbean islands of Hispanola and Cuba. They survived the last ice age and were likely hunted to extinction by humans. Their subfossilized remains have led to cryptozoology myths.
Ground sloths are large terrestrial mammals that lived from the beginning of the Oligocene (about 35 million years ago) until 1550 AD in the Caribbean islands of Hispanola and Cuba. The largest, Megatherium, whose name means “great beast”, it weighed up to five tons, the weight of an African elephant, and was too large to have predators. In an upright position, it would have stood 20 feet (6 m) tall, making it the largest mammal ever known to walk the Earth. Ground sloths lived in both North and South America.
Ground sloths were herbivores, like their modern relatives, the tree sloths, which they resemble more in genetic relation than in outward appearance. Unlike most herbivores, they had large, sharp claws that could have been used to strip leaves from trees and get rid of any predators. Their claws were so huge that they had to walk on them sideways. In another adaptation to protect them from predators, ground sloths had very thick skin and fur. This would have also helped them during the last ice age, and unlike other large mammals, they survived the ice age and only became extinct afterwards.
Like many extinct animals, ground sloths are often the subject of cryptozoology works, which claim that the animal was sighted in historical times in Argentina or elsewhere. This myth may stem in part from the fact that ground sloths became extinct so recently that their subfossilized dung can be found in caves and, in some rare cases, well-preserved subfossil remains of the animal itself. It seems likely that there is enough intact DNA left in these samples that the ground sloth DNA will eventually be sequenced and studied in its entirety.
Ground sloths were likely hunted to extinction by humans on land towards the end of the last ice age, just like so many other large animals around the world. Prior to their historic expedition, explorers Lewis and Clark were assigned by President Jefferson to look for ground sloths in the western United States, but they were never located.
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