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A number of kill sites are known for ground sloths in the Americas, these include Campo Laborde in the Pampas of Argentina, where an individual of Megatherium americanum was butchered at the edge of a swamp, dating to approximately 12,600 years Before Present (BP), [63] with another potential Megatherium kill site being Arroyo Seco 2 in the ...
During the late Miocene and Pliocene, the sloth genus Thalassocnus of the west coast of South America became adapted to a shallow-water marine lifestyle. [8] [9] [10] However, the family placement of Thalassocnus has been disputed; while long considered a nothrotheriid, one 2017 analysis moves it to Megatheriidae, [1] while another retains it in a basal position within Nothrotheriidae.
The group includes the heavily built Megatherium (given its name 'great beast' by Georges Cuvier [4]) and Eremotherium. An early genus that was originally considered a megatheriid, the more slightly built Hapalops, reached a length of about 1.2 metres (3.9 ft). The nothrotheres have recently been placed in their own family, Nothrotheriidae. [5]
Within the Megatheriidae there are two (possibly three) subfamilies; the Megatheriinae and the Planopsinae. The phylogenetically older group is represented by the Planopsinae from the Lower and Middle Miocene.
Illustration of the first specimen of Megatherium americanum from 1796 Life illustration of Megatherium americanum from 1863, depicting it with a short trunk. The earliest specimen of Megatherium americanum was discovered in 1787 by Manuel de Torres, a Dominican friar and naturalist, from a ravine on the banks of the Lujan River in what is now northern Argentina, which at the time was part of ...
Nothrotheriops is a genus of Pleistocene ground sloth found in North America, from what is now central Mexico to the southern United States. [1] This genus of bear-sized xenarthran was related to the much larger, and far more famous Megatherium, although it has recently been placed in a different family, Nothrotheriidae. [2]
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Eremotherium laurillardi skeleton at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Eremotherium was slightly larger than the closely related Megatherium in size, reaching an overall length of 6 metres (20 ft) and a height of 2 metres (6.6 ft) while on all fours, possibly up to 4 metres (13 ft) when it reared up on its hind legs. [25]