![]() Long hairs, especially on flanks and rear limbs. Nothrotheriops shastensis: about the size of a black bear ![]() Megalonyx jeffersoni : estimated near 1,000 kg (2,205 lb) Nothrotheriops shastensis: estimated 250 kg (551 lb) Paramylodon harlani : varied estimates from 1,000 kg (2,205 lb) to 1,089 kg (2,400 lb) Taxonomyįamily: Nothrotheriidae (family is extinct)įamily: Megalonychidae (family has extinct and living/extant members) ![]() The most recent credible dates from this and each of about half a dozen other southwestern caves are about 11,000 BP (13,000 cal BP).Image credit: © San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. Rampart Cave, in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, has a plentiful amount of the sloth's hair and dung, which allowed the scientists both to use radiocarbon dating techniques to establish when it lived. The best known historical specimen was found in a lava tube at Aden Crater in New Mexico it was found with hair and tendon still preserved. The genus lived primarily in the southwestern region of the U.S., from the states of Texas and Oklahoma to California it has also been found in Florida. It has been suggested that the lack of Shasta ground sloths helping to disperse the seeds to more favourable climates is causing the trees to suffer.Ī fossil find had been described from as far north as the Canadian province of Alberta however, this report is believed to have been mistaken. Preserved dung belonging to the sloth has been found to contain Joshua tree leaves and seeds, confirming that they fed on the trees. The Shasta ground sloth is believed to have played an important role in the dispersal of Yucca brevifolia, or Joshua tree, seeds. Also, the Shasta ground sloth may have had a prehensile tongue (like a giraffe) to strip leaves off branches. The same claws could also been used as tools to reach past the plant spines and grab softer flowers and fruits. It was hunted by various local predators, like dire wolves and Smilodon, from which the sloths may have defended themselves by standing upright on hindlegs and tail and swiping with their long foreclaws, like its distant relative Megatherium. Nothrotheriops behaved like all typical ground sloths of North and South America, feeding on various plants like the desert globemallow, cacti, and yucca. It had large, stout hindlegs and a powerful, muscular tail that it used to form a supporting tripod whenever it shifted from a quadrupedal stance to a bipedal one (i.e. shastensis was one of the smallest ground sloth species, it still reached 2.75 metres from snout to tail tip and weighed 250 kilograms (one-quarter of a tonne) - much smaller than some of its contemporary species such as the Eremotherium, which could easily weigh over two tonnes and be 6 metres long. shastensis, is also called the Shasta ground sloth. This genus of bear-sized xenarthran was related to the much larger, and far more famous Megatherium, although it has recently been placed in a different family, Nothrotheriidae. Nothrotheriops is a genus of Pleistocene ground sloth found in North America, from what is now central Mexico to the southern United States. Temporal range: during the Pleistocene of North America ( 2.6–0.011 Ma)ĭimensions: length - 2,7 m, height - 100-110 сm, weight - 250 kgĪ typical representative: † Nothrotheriops shastensis (Sinclair, 1905) ![]() Nothrotheriops († Nothrotheriops (Hoffstetter, 1954))
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