American Museum of Natural History's
Ground Sloth Collection

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has the best collection of the fossils of the sloth's ancestors we have ever seen. These ancestors, known as "ground sloths" are now extinct. As their name suggests, they lived on the ground, probably often in caves. Like the sloths of today they were plant eaters. There were two types of ground sloths: mylodonts and megalonychids. The mylodonts had more complex teeth.


Here are some pictures we took on a recent visit:

Hapalops ruetimeyeri, "gentle appearing", an early megalonychi ground sloth.
This fossil is from southern Argentina and is about 18 million years old.


Megalocnus rodens. "great sloth". This sloth probably lived until a few thousand years ago in Cuba.


Megalonyx wheatleyi. "great claw". These megalonychid ground sloths
crossed from South to North America about 9 million years ago.


Scedidotherium cuvieri. "ribbed beast". Lived about 30,000 years ago.


Glossotherium robustus. "tongue beast".
This is a mylodont sloth that lived about 30,000 years ago.


Giant Ground Sloth. This sloth lived in South America until it became extinct about 10,000 years ago.

Here are some more photos of the Giant Ground Sloth:


Click here to go to American Museum of Natural History's Information on Sloth Ancestors


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Click here to go to the Sloth Web Site


This site is always under construction; stories are
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