Ice Age Sloths of North and South America

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Day 15: Giant Ground Sloth

'Wild avocados depended on ground sloths eating them to survive' may be an oversimplified science meme...but it's cute, so I will draw it

#ArtAdventCalendar #Art #DigitalArt #GroundSloth #Pleistocene #SciArt #Avocado #Green #PaleoArt #Megafauna #Sloth #Animal #MastoArt #CreativeToots #Nature

🦥 For #FossilFriday this is P68.40.1 - the rarest Minnesota fossil I’ve ever held in my hand: an well-preserved ungual phalanx of Megalonyx jeffersoni (Giant Ground Sloth).

Discovered in the late 1960s in a pile of excavated peat, it remains the singular specimen of this animal found in the state and is now in the Science Museum of Minnesota’s collection.

#Pleistocene #AnokaSandPlain #Megalonyxjeffersoni #Palaeontology #Groundsloth #CitizenScience

Plates: Erickson, Bruce R. (1968).

#GROUNDSLOTH

Picture yourself strolling along a meandering stream nestled within a late summer pr and wild flowers wave gently above your head. Now imagine this large creature, cove hair, lumbering past. He's nibbling on the grasses and sedgie grondy near the edge of You're safe. This slow moving gentle giant does not want to you. We's vegetaria

This has got to be the most amazing thing I’ve read this week, Evidence is mounting that large sandstone caves in Amazonian South America, large enough to comfortably walk through and the longest with 1,500 metres of tunnels, were carved out by giant ground sloths. Yes, ground sloths!

“The South American palaeoburrows might be the largest ichnofossils known so far.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00216-x

#archeology #palaeontology #MegaFauna #GroundSloth #Brazil #amazon

Did giant ice age beasts carve these vast caves in South America?

Researchers are investigating who — or what — cut ancient tunnels in sandstone in Brazil and nearby nations.

This spider makes its home in the burrows of extinct giant ground sloths

Caves made by extinct giant ground sloths make the perfect home for a newly discovered type of long-spinneret ground spider from Brazil.

Science News
There have long been stories and beliefs concerning ground sloths’ continued existence, especially in the isolated regions of South America, despite the scientific community’s conclusion that they are long since extinct. These tales typically originate from the deep Amazon jungle, where reports of unusual sightings periodically spark conjecture about extinct species that may yet exist. #groundsloth #cryptids #zoology https://youtu.be/xQ7s44okIwg?si=xuVunqYyGl3YNt48
Giant Ground Sloths Alive! Have They Survived?

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Admittedly, this pair looks like they are having a great time, even though they've been extinct for >12k years. #groundsloth #mammoth #BurkeMuseum #UWashington

One of the largest ground sloths, the elephant sized Eremotherium laurillardi, which ranged throughout most of South America, Central America and the southern United States until just about 11,000 years ago
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This one is for my licensing library. You can also see a figure showing the manus of this taxon, quickly recognized by the presence of only two claws

#eremotherium #sloth #groundsloth #fediart #giantsloth #paleoart #conceptart #digitalart #digitalartist #illustration #pleistocene #art

<i>Eremotherium</i>