Megatherium americanum Cuvier, 1796
Mammalia
Eutheria
Xenarthra
Pilosa
Megatheriidae
Pleistocene
South America
Length: 6 m
As big as an elephant, Megatherium is the largest known ground sloth. It was normally quadrupedal but was able to stand on its hind legs. It got extinct only some 10,000 years ago some time after humans arrived in South America.
February 28, 2015
All images on this site are copyrighted to Nobu Tamura under a Creative Commons 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license meaning that you are free to use them for non commercial purposes as long as you properly credit the author (© N. Tamura). Questions: contact me at nobu dot tamura at yahoo dot com.