sloth

I’ve had a thing for the slow-moving sloth ever since my first to visit the La Brea Tar Pits in the mid-1990s.

During his travels in Uruguay, Darwin uncovered fossils belonging to Glossotherium, also known as the “tongue beast,” another species of giant sloth.

Given previous extinctions of megafauna such as Darwin’s giant sloth, and humanity’s inability to protect current day wildlife, it’s not clear whether valuable lessons have been learned.

In addition to Mylodon, Darwin uncovered fossils in Argentina belonging to another giant sloth species, Megatherium.

In 1960, it turned up in a blood sample from a sick sloth during the construction of the Belém-Brasília highway.