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Could it be that we are so enthralled by these long-ago species because they allow us to imagine the world we know in new ways? What if mastodons roamed the plains of North America as elephants do in Africa today? What if that sound crashing through the woods wasn’t a moose, but, instead, a giant sloth? There has to be a reason why kids love dinosaurs, why some of us humans adore roaming the halls of natural history museums, and why we’ll spend hours watching movies about bringing ancient animals back to life. What do we learn from the species that have disappeared? Oh, and if you want to check out a video that goes into even greater depth about the incredible number of ancient sloth species I mentioned at the top of the article, give this video from PBS Eons a watch! It’s a truly fantastic look at the diversity of sloth species that once lived on this planet. With content that spans literature, archaeology, science, and so much more, it’s the place to go to learn more about the world! If you are a curious person or know of one, TED-Ed is one of the best YouTube channels out there to explore. While the sloths we know today are still fascinating, their ancient relatives once dominated an impressive range of habitats across North America, from the mountains to the sea! And yes, this is one tale that’ll have you looking at your avocados with a little more awe. Sloths? Those slow things that live in trees that can barely do anything? Well, yes, actually. No, these are the fossil remains of a creature you’d never expect to find in North America today: sloths. What was this giant creature? And what does it have to do today with, of all things, avocados? This, my friends, isn’t some fairy tale, but a mystery you’ll want to come along with!Īll this talk of sharp claws and massive sizes may have you wondering, what kind of creatures are we talking about!? Well, my friends, we’re not talking about giant wolves, lions, or bears. With gigantic claws and confusingly large limbs, its enormous size puzzled and even struck fear into the hearts of American explorers. People sometimes take the sloths out of the water but they can hold their breath and swim just fine, so leave 'em alone.Once upon a time, a massive creature roamed the Americas. Most people picture sloths in the trees, so when they see them in the water they are typically shocked-but sloths are actually decent swimmers. Remarkably, in 2014, researchers found that sloth hair is actually a novel source of a fungi from the Ascomycota phylum that is able to fight off the parasites that cause malaria and Chagas disease. Other bacteria, moths, insects and cockroaches all like to call sloth hair home. This relationship is thought to be symbiotic as the algae gets a sheltered place to grow and the sloth gets green camouflage for its life in the tree canopy.Īlgae isn’t the only thing in a sloth's coat though. Research has shown there is a species of green algae known as Trichophilus welckeri that inhabits the hair of all living sloth species. Sloths are known for being slow-so slow in fact, a wide variety of organisms can set up shop in their thick hair. Sloth hair is its own micro-habitat and it could save us Sometimes ground sloth dung is found in caves in South America that nearly looks fresh due to the cold conditions, but these animals went extinct around 10,000 years ago. President Theodore Roosevelt donated his own find-ground sloth poop- to the American Museum of Natural History. A variety of ground sloths lived in the Americas up until a few thousand years ago, which is fairly recent in terms of evolutionary history. Megatherium and other ground sloths were too big for trees and lived on the ground unlike their fully arboreal modern relatives. The evolutionary history of sloths is actually quite complicated-even though today there are only 6 living sloth species, over the past 35 million years there have been at least 50 different species that inhabited land, trees, and water.
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It was the discovery and observation of Megatherium fossils from South America among others that provided some of Darwin's evidence for his theory of natural selection. The most famous giant ground sloth of South America, Megatherium, was the size of an elephant and grew to over 8,000 lbs on a steady diet of plants. The small cuddly sloths of today were not so adorable a few million years ago.