Three-fingered sloth skeleton showing the claws/fingers. These bones are covered by a sheath of the same material that makes up our fingernails and hair (keratin). In the Midwest, most of them have been found in caves, including sites in Missouri, Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. While sloth claws look like overgrown nails, they are actually formed by elongated and curved distal phalange bones protruding from their limbs. They have also been found in California, Arizona and New Mexico, as well as northern Mexico. Some have been found as far north as Alaska and the Northwest Territories of Canada. Megalonyx fossils have been recovered from about 150 sites across North America, according to the Illinois State Museum. They likely relied on their robust hind feet, in combination with a stout tail, to support their massive bodies when rearing on their hindquarters to reach high into trees for forage, Wilkins explained. Their hind foot structure and posture of the ground sloths also helped it with meal time. Their body temperatures fluctuate from as low as 24 degrees C to as high as 33. "They had long curved claws, likely an adaptation for foraging for grabbing branches and stripping foliage from tree limbs, as well as for protection from predators," Wilkins told Live Science. Two-toed sloths are perhaps more heterothermic than any other mammal. Their peg-like teeth were ideal for this diet, but they also had other body parts that played a large part in their meals. Ground sloths were herbivores, meaning they ate vegetation. Some argue that they were around for many more thousands of years (opens in new tab), though, surviving on islands in the Caribbean. ![]() This made for a very cold environment that few animals could endure.īy the end of the Great Ice Age, around 11,700 years ago, many believe that the giant ground sloths had become extinct. At its peak, as much as 30 percent of the Earth's surface was covered by glaciers and parts of the northern oceans were frozen, according to the San Diego Natural History Museum. ![]() These herbaceous treetop dwellers are very slow moving. Both of these get their common name from the two toes found on their front limbs. 26, in the exact same location, but 10 feet deeper, and is believed to have lived 600,000 years ago.Īll three animals date from the Pleistocene Period - the Ice Age.Giant ground sloths preferred forests along rivers or lakes, but they also lived during the Pleistocene period, also known as the Great Ice Age. There are two species of two-toed sloths, the Hoffmann’s and the Southern, both native to the tropical rainforests of Central and South America. The California Gray whale skeleton was found on Feb. The 500,000 year old Columbian Mammoth remains (skull, tusks and several foot bones) were found at the site on Feb. In case you are keeping score on the construction site finds: Jefferson, thought of as the father of modern paleontology, had a strong interest in the fossils of huge creatures such as mammoths and giant sloths. It is not known if the find is a Megalonyx jeffersonii. Ironically there is a species of giant ground sloth that is named after the law school's namesake, Thomas Jefferson: Megalonyx jeffersonii. Paleontologist Pat Sena of the San Diego Natural History Museum, who found the sloth bones, said the bones are poorly preserved. The sloth bones were found at about the same depth as the whale bones, indicating the sloth lived about 600,000 years ago. The bones – part of a vertebra, as well as tooth and skull fragments – were unearthed Friday in a different part of the site from where whale and mammoth bones were found last month. But the bones are in poor shape and may not be salvageable. More prehistoric bones – this time, those of a giant sloth – have been found at the East Village construction site of the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, the school said yesterday. ![]() Another mammoth's bones get new digs(2/5/09).Dig yields another big find: Whale bones (2/27/09).
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