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Sloths are a Neotropical group of xenarthran mammals constituting the suborder Folivora, including the extant arboreal tree sloths and extinct terrestrial ground sloths. Noted for their slowness of movement, tree sloths spend most of their lives hanging upside down in the trees of the tropical rainforests of South America and Central America .
Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. They varied widely in size with the largest, belonging to genera Lestodon, Eremotherium and Megatherium, being around the size of elephants. Ground sloths represent a paraphyletic group, as living tree sloths are thought to have evolved from ground sloth ...
Research of evolutionary size trends suggests that in contrast to other ground sloth groups that grew over time, megalonychids did not exponentially increase in mass but instead varied greatly around the same amount until their extinction. [14] [15] The following sloth family phylogenetic tree is based on collagen and mitochondrial DNA sequence ...
Extinct xenarthrans include the glyptodonts, pampatheres and ground sloths. Xenarthrans originated in South America during the late Paleocene about 60 million years ago. [ 2 ] They evolved and diversified extensively in South America during the continent's long period of isolation in the early to mid Cenozoic Era.
Based on fossil trackways and the anatomy of its inner ear, which is considerably different from living sloths and more similar to those of armadillos, species of Megatherium, while probably not capable of moving at considerable speed due to limitations of their skeletal anatomy (with one study estimating a max speed of approximately 2.2 metres ...
Unfortunately, the bulk of sloth species that once roamed the earth -- some of which grew to be the size of elephants -- cannot say the same. Long ago, there Sloths were once as large as elephants
Range maps are provided wherever possible; if a range map is not available, a description of the pilosan's range is provided. Ranges are based on the IUCN Red List for that species unless otherwise noted. All extinct species or subspecies listed alongside extant species went extinct after 1500 CE, and are indicated by a dagger symbol "†".
Because of the sloth’s slow nature and the many hours it spends sleeping in the tree canopy, organisms have a chance to not only land on the sloth’s fur, but also to make it their home.