Giant sloths: habitat and causes of extinction. Ancient animals
Giant sloths - belong to a group of several different extinct species of sloths that differed huge size. These creatures appeared approximately 35,000,000 years ago during the Oligocene. Some individuals that lived in the New World reached a mass of more than 2000 kilograms and grew up to 6 meters. Some species of giant sloths survived until the end of the Pleistocene. Unlike modern sloths, their giant relatives spent most life on the ground, not in the trees. According to geneticists who sequenced the DNA of Darwin's mylodon (Mylodon darwinii), a lineage of mylodontids (Mylodontidae) and two-fingered sloths (Megalonychidae), they found that the two species diverged about 22 million years ago.
Causes of extinction
Findings of fossilized skeletons of giant sloths indicate that ancient people living in America encountered these animals. For a long time The cause of the extinction of prehistoric sloths was believed to be sudden climate change in the late ice age. The sedimentary regime changed, glaciers began to melt and caused sea and ocean levels to rise. Many scientists believe that giant sloths and many other animals simply could not adapt to very rapidly changing environmental conditions.
But there are facts that disprove this theory: giant sloths have existed for more than 2,000,000 years and managed to survive many periods of climate change. In addition, they are one of the few South American species that, after the appearance of a natural land bridge with North America, were able to populate northern continent, which indicates their significant ability to adapt. Early humans settled on the American mainland about 30,000 years ago, and the last giant sloths became extinct on the continent about 10,000 years ago. And this fact suggests that ancient man hunted these animals. Since these giants moved very slowly, they were quite easy prey for ancient hunters. Perhaps ancient man can be blamed for their imminent disappearance.
In the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso in Santa Elina, paleontologists have found jewelry made from the bones of giant sloths, which were made by ancient Americans. In 2917, carbon dating was carried out and it was found that the finds were 23,000 years old. IN national park White Sands or White Sands in New Mexico (USA) were discovered left about 10-15 thousand years ago. n. more than 100 fossilized footprints of giant sloths and traces of people in them. Since no sloth skeleton was found, scientists concluded that the hunt was a failure.
Giant sloths include 4 different families of sloths.
Megatherium
Representatives of this family grew larger than modern elephants. The most big family there was Megatherium, it reached 6 meters. The genus Eremotherium was just as huge; it lived until the end of the Pleistocene. His skeletons have been found both in South America and in Florida. The two genera Nothrotherium and Nothrotheriops were very similar in appearance and were also able to survive until the end of the Pleistocene. One species lived on the southern continent, the other on the northern. Giant sloths belong to the genus Thalassocnus. They led an aquatic lifestyle and lived off the coast of Peru.
Was the largest of the creatures on earth that lived before the Ice Age. By appearance giant sloth looks a bit like a hamster of incredible size. Probably fed on the leaves of the lower branches of trees or bushes.
The most large individuals giant sloths were the size of a modern elephant and reached a weight of more than 5 tons.
Giant sloths They were very large, with dangerous claws. Despite the size, giant sloths used their huge claws to remove tree bark and plant leaves. Their teeth were small and blunt, suggesting a herbivorous diet for giant sloths. Finds of hip bones suggest that they could stand on hind legs.
Most scientists believe that large claws giant sloths They were used to clear trees, but Richard Farina, a paleontologist at the University of the Republic of Montevideo, expressed a different opinion.
He measured the length of a giant sloth's elbow and found it to be surprisingly short for an animal of its size. The shorter the length, the faster the forelimbs can move. Fast movements this is a sign of a predator. Farina believes that giant sloth, may have evolved from predators and preyed on glyptodonts, the giant armadillos that lived at the time.
If this is so, then probably when hunting glyptodonts giant sloth used his huge claws.
Like other giant creatures, the giant sloth became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene period (about 10,000 years ago), but its " cousin"- the little sloth has survived to this day.
In the 1890s, Argentine explorer, geographer and adventurer Ramon Lista hunted in what was then known as Patagonia. One day he saw big unknown creature , covered long hair ran past the expedition camp.
The creature was looks like a giant sloth. A participant in the hunt shot at the animal, but the bullets, as it turned out, were not effective.
Professor Florentino Ameghino, an Argentine paleontologist, having heard List's story, expressed doubt that strange beast was a giant sloth that has survived since the Pleistocene.
The giant sloth is known in Indian folklore as a nocturnal animal that lives in burrows that it digs with its claws. The Indians' arrows could not pierce the skin of this animal.
There is no evidence that the giant sloth has survived to this day. Why did it become extinct? Probably for the same reasons that happened mass extinction others giant creatures who lived before the Ice Age.
One hypothesis suggests that a person who lived in the same regions where he lived giant sloth, perhaps even hunted them, like the mammoth, which led to their disappearance.
Mammoth Columbus- one of the largest mammoths to ever exist on earth, a relative of the more common woolly mammoth. The remains of Colombian mammoths were found along the route from Canada to Mexico. Famous woolly mammoths left their traces in North Asia, Russia, Canada. Their main difference is that the Columbian mammoths were practically not covered with hair, which makes them similar to modern elephants, and their tusks were much larger than those of woolly mammoths.
The height of Colombian mammoths was approximately 3-4 m, and their weight reached 5-10 tons. Columbian mammoths have the largest tusks among the elephant family. 3.5 in length, rounded, incredibly strong, they were used to fight all predators, including humans.
Giant sloths. Today, the sloth is one of the cutest creatures, photos of which receive millions of “likes” on social networks. Their ancient ancestors did not seem so charming.
Several species of giant sloths are known. Those that lived in North America were the size of rhinoceroses, and ancient man may have often dined on them. However, the largest of the giant sloths, Megatherium, lived in South Africa about 10 thousand years ago and were the size of less than an elephant. About 6 m from head to tail, weighing 4 tons, with sharp teeth and long nails, sloths seemed quite formidable animals. Moreover, there is an assumption that they were predators.
Latest species giant sloths lived on the Caribbean islands approximately 4.2 thousand years ago.
Gigantopithecus — largest primate who has ever trampled the earth. This relative of orangutans deserved its name: the three-meter animal weighed 500 kg and was huge even for prehistoric world. Interestingly, Gigantopithecus is very similar to images of the Yeti. True, Gigantopithecus died out 100 thousand years ago. In addition, if at that time the giant primates did not think of hiding from people, then it is unlikely that any of them are now hiding in the highlands, scaring tourists under the guise of Bigfoot.
Gigantopithecus lived on Earth for approximately 6-9 million years, eating fruits South-East Asia. But with climate change rainforests turned into arid savannas, and Gigantopithecus began to die out from lack of food.
Cave hyena reached 1 m in height at the shoulders and weighed from 80 to 100 kg. According to calculations based on studies of fossilized remains, a cave hyena was capable of knocking down a 5-year-old mastodon that weighed a ton.
Cave hyenas lived in packs, sometimes consisting of 30 individuals. This made them stronger hunters: together they could attack a 9-year-old mastodon weighing all 9 tons. Needless to say, the man hardly dreamed of meeting a pack of hungry hyenas.
Population cave hyenas began to decline 20 thousand years ago and finally disappeared 11-13 thousand years ago. Scientists suggest a struggle with humans for cave space during the last ice age as one of the reasons that influenced the extinction of cave hyenas.
Smilodon- extinct genus saber-toothed cats, contrary to stereotypes, has little in common with saber-toothed tigers.
Saber-toothed cats first appeared 42 million years ago. There were many species of them, most of which became extinct before the appearance of humans. However, at least two species of saber-toothed cats could have been encountered by primitive man in America. They were the size of modern African lion and weighed like an Amur tiger.
Smilodon was an incredibly strong animal - it could easily attack a mammoth. Smilodon used a special tactic: first it waited for prey, approached unnoticed and quickly attacked.
Despite its “saber teeth,” Smilodon does not have the most powerful bite among cats. Yes, bite modern lion, perhaps three times stronger. But the Smilodon’s mouth swung open 120 degrees, which is half the capabilities of the current lion.
dire wolf- no, “terrible” is not an epithet here, but the name of a species of wolves that lived in North America. Dire wolves appeared about a quarter of a million years ago. They are similar to modern gray wolves, but much tougher. Their length reached 1.5 m, and their weight was about 90 kg.
The dire wolf's bite force was 29% stronger than the bite force gray wolf. Their main diet was horses. Like many other carnivores, the dire wolf went extinct 10,000 years ago during the last ice age.
American Lion, despite the name "lion", he was closer to the modern panther than to the lion. American lions inhabited North America about 330 thousand years ago.
The American lion is the largest known wild cats in history. On average, the individual weighed about 350 kg, was incredibly strong and easily attacked the bison. So even a group of primitive people would not be delighted to meet one of the American lions. Like their previous comrades, American lions went extinct during the last Ice Age.
Megalania- the largest of known to science lizards - lived in Australia and began to disappear about 50 thousand years ago, i.e. at the same time as humans began to populate the continent.
The size of megalania is a subject of scientific debate. According to some sources, its length reached 7 m, but there is an opinion that average length was about 3.5 m. But not only size is important: megalania was poisonous lizard. If its victim did not die from loss of blood, then it certainly died from poisoning - in any case, hardly anyone managed to escape alive from the mouth of megalania.
Short-faced bear- one of those types of bears that could have been encountered primitive. The ancient bear was about 1.5 meters at the shoulders, but as soon as he stood on his hind legs, he stretched up to 4 m. If this does not sound scary enough, then add this detail: thanks to his long limbs, the bear reached a speed of up to 64 km/ h. This means that Hussein Bolt, whose record is 45 km/h, would easily have been his for dinner.
Gigantic short-faced bears were one of the largest carnivores in North America. They appeared about 800 thousand years ago, and died out 11.6 thousand years ago.
Quincans, land crocodiles appeared quite a long time ago - 1.6 million ago in Australia. The giant ancestors of crocodiles reached 7 m in length. Unlike crocodiles, quincans lived and hunted on land. They were helped in this by long powerful legs to catch up with prey over long distances, and sharp teeth. The fact is that crocodiles use their teeth mainly to grab the victim, drag it away with water and drown it. The teeth of the land quincana were intended for killing; they pierced and literally cut the victim. The Quincans became extinct approximately 50 thousand years ago, having lived for about 10 thousand years side by side with primitive man.
Causes of extinction
Findings of the remains of giant sloths show that the first people in America, the ancestors of the Indians, still encountered these animals. For a long time, the cause of their extinction was thought to be a sharp change in climate at the end of the last ice age. Warming has caused changes in sediment patterns in many places, melting glaciers and rising sea levels. Some scientists are of the opinion that many species of animals, including giant sloths, were unable to adapt quickly enough to new external conditions.
Skeleton of Eremotherium.
Against this hypothesis is that giant sloths have survived many climate changes over the more than two million years of their existence. In addition, they belonged to the few South American species that, after the emergence of a natural land bridge with North America, were able to spread to the northern continent, which indicates their adaptive abilities. New research suggests that some smaller species survived on the Caribbean islands of Haiti and Cuba for up to a year before Europeans arrived. People settled the American continent between 30 and 10 thousand years ago, and the last giant sloths disappeared from the mainland about 10 thousand years ago. This suggests that these animals were hunted. They were probably easy prey because, like their modern relatives, they moved very slowly. Therefore, the cause of their extinction was more likely due to humans than climate change. Indian legends tell of a creature called Mapinguari, whose description matches that of a huge sloth. Intrigued by these legends, cryptozoologists tried to find surviving individuals in the Amazon basin, but they were unsuccessful.
Taxonomy
Giant sloths are not separate taxonomic group. Four different families of sloths included major representatives, which can be classified as giant sloths.
Megatherium
Representatives of this family reached the size of elephants. One of the largest genera was Megatherium ( Megatherium), reaching a size of 6 m. The genus was approximately the same large Eremotherium, surviving until the late Pleistocene. His remains have been found in both South America and Florida. Other births Nothrotherium And Nothrotheriops were very similar to each other and also survived until the late Pleistocene - one on the southern, the other on the northern continent. The giant sloth, classified in the genus Thalassocnus, led an aquatic lifestyle and lived off the coast of modern Peru. Relatively primitive genera were Planops And Hapalops, who lived in South America in the Miocene and are close to the Megatherium family. Hapalops reached a length of 1.2 m.
Two-fingered sloths
Mylodonts
Mylodonts form a group of slightly smaller sloths. The largest mylodonts belonged to the genus Mylodon and reached a length of 3 m, which corresponds to bulls. The first fossil remains were found in 1895 in a cave in Chile. Presumably, these animals became extinct about 11 thousand years ago. Related species Glossotherium harlani was found in asphalt pits at the La Brea Ranch near Los Angeles. Genus Scelidotherium was distinguished by a special skull structure and lived in South America from the early Pliocene to the late Pleistocene. There was a clan Lestodon.
Literature
- P. S. Martin: Quaternary Extinctions. The University of Arizona Press, 1984. ISBN 0-8165-1100-4
- A. H. Müller: Lehrbuch der Paläozoologie, Band III Vertebraten, Teil 3 Mammalia, 2. Auflage. Gustav Fischer Verlag, 1989. ISBN 3-334-00223-3
Wikimedia Foundation.
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See what “Giant sloths” are in other dictionaries: GIANT SLOTHS - (slow movers; Gravigrada), a group of fossil edentates (see EDENTULATE ANIMALS), extinct in the late Holocene (see HOLOCENE), about 10 12 thousand years ago. Compared with modern types sloths (see SLOTHS), slow-moving creatures were distinguished by their huge... ...
encyclopedic Dictionary Sloths - (Bradypoda, Tardigrada, Phytophaga) family of edentates (Edentata). The small, short head is more or less rounded and monkey-like; the eyes are small, the ears are rudimentary and hidden in the fur, the lips are hard and inactive. Zubov... ...
Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Ephron - Squad
Partial teeth - Family
Megatheriidae - Genus
Megatherium. Megatherium
Basic data:
DIMENSIONS Body length:
probably up to 6 m. Weight:
Mating season: no information.
Pregnancy: unknown.
Number of cubs: unknown.
Habits: Megatherium (see photo) probably lived alone or in small herds.
Food: vegetable, for example, yucca, agave.
Lifespan: unknown.
RELATED SPECIES
During the Miocene period there lived many giant representatives of this family, Megatherium was the largest of them. Most of these animals led a terrestrial lifestyle.
Megatherium looked like a bear. This giant sloth had a wide skull and thick dark fur. Megatherium could stand firmly on its hind legs. He walked on four limbs. At the same time, it was the size of . When he rose on his hind legs, he was much taller than an elephant.
WHAT DID I EAT
Megatherium sloth lived in the light jungles that grew millions of years ago in the territory of modern South America. It ate leaves, grass and plants such as yucca and agave. Its relative Eremotherium inhabited northern regions mainland. This giant sloth reared on its hind legs to reach leafy tree branches and used its thick tail to maintain balance. With paws with sharp claws, the animal bent the branches down. The sloth had simple teeth with which it chewed and crushed food, which was facilitated by well-developed, strong chewing muscles. His stomach was adapted to digest tough plant food. It is likely that he tore up the ground with his sharp claws and ate root crops. Millions of years ago, this huge sloth did not have natural enemies, and, therefore, he could have been active during the day. Even when they appeared dangerous predators, For example, ( Saber-toothed tiger), the sloth did not disappear. This was facilitated by thick skin covered with thick, long hair. Skin ossifications were found in the thickness of the sloth's skin, which further strengthened its skin and prevented predators from injuring it.
LIFESTYLE
Little is known about the life of the giant sloth, the ancestor of modern edentates. It was a very large, slow, clumsy animal. Standing on four legs, Megatherium was as tall as an elephant. When the animal rose on its hind legs to reach young foliage, its height almost doubled. The body was covered with thick skin overgrown with thick hair. Megatherium fed plant food. Consumed great amount green plants, which he most often looked for near the ground. When walking, he did not rest on the entire foot, but on its edge. They think that these animals could hold on in small groups or alone.
EVOLUTION
When the ancestors of Megatherium settled in South America, the land area that connected North America from the south (modern Panama), was flooded with water. Sloths, like other edentates, could develop peacefully because at that time they had no food competition with other species.
In the order of edentates, many have developed different forms, but all its representatives had general signs: teeth lacking enamel and different quantities additionally curved vertebrae, which provided them with greater mobility. According to one theory, this structure of the vertebrae helped him carry a heavy body.
After almost 60 million years, a piece of land between the continents reappeared on the surface. Then Megatherium and other representatives of edentates were able to move to the north, where they populated vast areas, but later disappeared in some areas. This is evidenced by the skeletons of these animals found in North America. Megatheriums are the ancestors of modern sloths, which are much smaller in size and live on tree branches. Megatherium giant sloths are thought to have gone extinct as a result of climate and topography changes.
SKELETON OF MEGATHERIA
Size: standing on four legs, this sloth was as tall as an elephant.
Vertebrae: thanks to special structure spine, it was a very mobile animal.
Tail: With the help of its tail, the sloth maintained its balance, especially when it stood on its hind legs.
Claws: on each limb there were 5 claws, with which the sloth grabbed branches and bent them down.
Hind limbs: when the sloth stood on its hind legs, it easily reached the treetops.
- Habitat of Megatherium
WHERE MEGATERIUS LIVED
The giant sloth lived in what is now South America, that is, in Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. Some species later moved to North America, where they lived for several million years.