Giant ground sloth

Megatherium, the largest genus of Giant Ground Sloth, was also one of the largest megafaunal mammals of the Pleistocene, reaching 8 metres long, 6 metres tall when reared up and it weighed 5-6 tonnes. This was a spectacular South American Xenoarthan, and it is distantly related to the strange tree dweller sloths that we still have today. Megatherium would have been rather unintelligent and instinctively agressive to make up for this. They were primarily herbivores, though they could use…

The extinct giant ground sloth Megatherium and the horned glyptodont Panochthus in prehistoric South America. Both animals would eventually migrate into North America.

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Megatherium

Megatherium was a genus of elephant-sized ground sloths endemic to Central America and South America that lived from the Pliocene through to the Pleistocene existing for approximately 5.3 million years.

Over 100 species of giant ground sloths lived throughout the Americas. Megatherium towered 3.5 meters tall and weighed up to 4 tons. More...

Do the small, tree-dwelling, slow-moving sloths of today have ancient gigantic relatives? They do! but how big were they and what exactly were they up to?

Today, if you wish to see large herds of large animals, then Africa is the place to go; but once, not so long ago the Americas boasted a collection of large animals or megafauna that must have astounded the earliest human settlers...

North American Megafauna