Mylodon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Mylodon Fossil range: Pleistocene to Holocene |
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Mylodon was a genus of giant ground sloth that lived in the Patagonia area of South America until roughly 10,000 years ago.
Mylodon weighed about 200 kilograms (440 lb) and stood up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) tall when raised up on its hind legs. Preserved dung has shown it was a herbivore. It had very thick hide and had osteoderms within its skin for added armor. Because of this armor and its own long and sharp claws, it's unlikely Mylodon had any natural enemies; even in the case of man, the skin would also have been very difficult to pierce with stone tipped arrows.
Many samples of preserved hide and dung have been discovered, and they are in such a good state of conservation that the people who first discovered them believed they belonged to a living animal instead of an extinct species. Mylodon bones with skin still attached were found by Charles Darwin on the beach of Bahia Blanca in 1834, during the Voyage of the Beagle.[1]
Mylodon's closest relatives include the giant ground sloths of the genera Glossotherium and Paramylodon. The latter genus has often been confused with Glossotherium but Paramylodon is a distinct genus that was restricted to the Pleistocene of North America.[2] Glossotherium also shares a long history of taxonomic confusion with Mylodon, and currently the only recognized species is Mylodon darwini. At one time, the elephant-sized Megatherium was thought to be closely related, but is recognized as belonging to a separate family (Megatheriidae).
[edit] Recent Survival Claims and Cryptozoology
It has been claimed that small populations of Mylodon survived long past 8,000 years BC, and possibly as late as the 1500s AD. It is claimed to be documented in a drawing on the Piri Reis map of 1513.
The discovery of fresh looking samples of skin and dung sparked a small wave of expeditions during the early 20th century to search for a living example of the animal (the samples have since been found to be around 10,000 years old). The remains look fresh because of the extreme cold and stable conditions in the caves in which they were found. These expeditions found little or nothing of scientific value. All expeditions were hampered by the extreme weather, nearly impenetrable forest and extremely rugged terrain. If the species does survive, it does so in one of the most inaccessible regions of the world.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- www.sloth-world.org - Sloth World - an online bibliography
- www.trueauthoritory.com - Quest For The Giant Sloth
