The sloth and bison species have been extinct for … Megatherium is one of the largest land mammals known to have existed, weighing up to 4 tonnes and measuring up to 6 m (20 ft) in length from head to tail. Discovered in 1787 by Manuel Torres in Argentina, the first M. americanum fossils were shipped to the Museo Nacional de Ciencias in Madrid, where the original skeleton is still on display. It is the largest-known ground sloth, as big as modern elephants, and would have only been exceeded in its time by a few species of mammoth.The group is known primarily from its largest species, M. americanum. GAINESVILLE, Fla.—Bones of a newly discovered ground sloth that is the oldest of its kind ever found in North America have been uncovered by a University of Florida research team. In 2010, the first specimen ever found in Colorado was discovered at the Ziegler Reservoir site near Snowmass Village (in the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of 8,874 feet). The Giant Ground Sloth, also known as the Megatherium, was a genus of enormous rhino-sized ground sloths (as opposed to the modern-day tiny tree sloths) that were indigenous to South America and migrated and spread across the entire continent of North America. In 2014, divers discovered the remains of that giant sloth buried in a clay shelf in a sinkhole 70 feet underwater. After professional diver Vicente Fito discovered the skeleton of the giant ground sloth in the underwater sinkhole in 2010, he brought Jeronimo Aviles, pictured, to the site to film the evidence. From the first prehistoric fossils discovered in the1700’s AD, giant ground sloths have lived in the Americas (North America, Central America, and South America) from 35 million years ago to many centuries past the end of the Pleistocene Era( The Ice Age). The sloth was discovered after divers found some of its remains during a search for ancient Mayan artifacts in the pool. ; Humans hunted the giant ground sloth 12,600 years ago … These too turned out to be giant ground sloths. The mylodontid ground sloths together with their relatives the orophodontids form the Mylodonta, the second radiation of ground sloths.The discovery of their fossils in caverns associated with human occupation led some early researchers to theorize that the early humans built corrals when they could procure a young ground sloth, to raise the animal to butchering size. The first identified specimen of the Giant Sloth was discovered in Argentina in 1788, and definitively pegged as a sloth a few years later by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier (who at first thought Megatherium used its claws to climb trees, and then decided it burrowed underground instead!) Jefferson named these new bones Megalonyx jeffersonii, meaning “giant claw” (the jeffersonii species name is an affectation that many discoverers take when naming their new species). The oldest sloth fossil ever discovered is around 9 million years old and was discovered in Argentina. ♦ In 1895, a rancher by the name of Eberhardt found some hide in a cave in Patagonia that turned out to be giant ground sloth skin. The species was the subject of the first and second scientific articles on fossils ever published in the United States. These large, furry herbivores lived for about 5.3 million years and went into extinction around 10,000 years back. Megatherium americanum is the scientific name for an extinct species of giant ground sloth. Rearing on its hind legs, the giant ground sloth would have been a formidable prey for anyone, let alone humans without modern weapons. Scientists say the Harlan's Ground Sloth could have weighed 1,500lb (680kg), and been up to 10ft in length.