For the often misspelt bacterium, see Bacillus megaterium.
Megatherium
Temporal range: Early Pliocene[1] to Early Holocene, 5–0.010 Ma
PreꞒ
Ꞓ
O
S
D
C
P
T
J
K
Pg
N
↓
Possible later date of 0.008 Ma
M. americanum skeleton, Natural History Museum, London
Scientific classification
Domain:
Eukaryota
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Mammalia
Order:
Pilosa
Clade:
†Megatheria
Family:
†Megatheriidae
Subfamily:
†Megatheriinae
Genus:
†Megatherium Cuvier, 1796
Type species
†Megatherium americanum
Cuvier, 1796
Subgenera
Megatherium
†M. altiplanicum Saint-Andre & De Iuliis, 2001
†M. americanum Cuvier, 1796
Pseudomegatherium
†M. celendinense Pujos, 2006
†M. medinae Philippi, 1893
†M. sundti Philippi, 1893
†M. tarijense Gervais & Ameghino, 1880
†M. urbiani Pujos & Salas, 2004
Map showing the distribution of all Megatherium species in red, inferred from fossil finds
Synonyms
EssonodontheriumAmeghino 1884
OrocanthusAmeghino 1885
NeoracanthusAmeghino 1889
Megatherium (/mɛɡəˈθɪəriəm/meg-ə-THEER-ee-əm; from Greek méga (μέγα) 'great' + theríon (θηρίον) 'beast') is an extinct genus of ground sloths endemic to South America that lived from the Early Pliocene[1] through the end of the Pleistocene.[2] It is best known for the elephant-sized type species M. americanum, native to the Pampas through southern Bolivia during the Pleistocene. Various other species belonging to the subgenus Pseudomegatherium ranging in size comparable to considerably smaller than M. americanum are known from the Andean region.
Megatherium is part of the sloth family Megatheriidae, which also includes the similarly giant Eremotherium, comparable in size to M. americanum, which was native to tropical South America, Central America and North America as far north as the southern United States. Megatherium was first discovered in 1787 on the bank of the Luján River in Argentina. The holotype specimen was then shipped to Spain the following year wherein it caught the attention of the paleontologist Georges Cuvier, who was the first to determine, by means of comparative anatomy, that Megatherium was a sloth. Megatherium became extinct around 12,000 years ago as part of the Late Pleistocene megafauna extinctions, simultaneously with the majority of other large mammals in the Americas. The extinctions followed the first arrival of humans in the Americas, and one and potentially multiple kill sites where M. americanum was slaughtered and butchered is known, suggesting that hunting could have caused its extinction.[3]
^ abSaint-André, P. A.; De Iuliis, G. (2001). "The smallest and most ancient representative of the genus Megatherium Cuvier, 1796 (Xenarthra, Tardigrada, Megatheriidae), from the Pliocene of the Bolivian Altiplano" (PDF). Geodiversitas. 23 (4): 625–645. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-29. Retrieved 14 April 2016.
^Zurita, A. E.; Carlini, A. A.; Scillato-Yané, G. J.; Tonni, E. P. (2004). "Mamíferos extintos del Cuaternario de la Provincia del Chaco (Argentina) y su relación con aquéllos del este de la región pampeana y de Chile". Revista Geológica de Chile. 31 (1): 65–87. doi:10.4067/S0716-02082004000100004.
^Politis, Gustavo G.; Messineo, Pablo G.; Stafford, Thomas W.; Lindsey, Emily L. (March 2019). "Campo Laborde: A Late Pleistocene giant ground sloth kill and butchering site in the Pampas". Science Advances. 5 (3): eaau4546. Bibcode:2019SciA....5.4546P. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aau4546. ISSN 2375-2548. PMC 6402857. PMID 30854426.
Megatherium (/mɛɡəˈθɪəriəm/ meg-ə-THEER-ee-əm; from Greek méga (μέγα) 'great' + theríon (θηρίον) 'beast') is an extinct genus of ground sloths endemic...
The Megatherium Club was a group of Washington, D.C.-based scientists who were attracted to that city by the Smithsonian Institution's rapidly growing...
about 6 metres (20 ft) long, slightly larger than its close relative Megatherium. Eremotherium was widespread in tropical and subtropical lowlands and...
from Uruguay, though many were incorrectly referred to the ground sloth Megatherium by early paleontologists. The type species, G. clavipes, was described...
The Paleontological Museum Megatherium (Spanish: Museo Paleontológico Megaterio) is a museum in the province of Santa Elena in Ecuador, located in the...
Megatherium, discovered in Argentina (mistakenly referred to as Paraguay), Jefferson revised his interpretation and compared Megalonyx to Megatherium...
called it B. megatherium assuming the name was incorrectly spelled. This trend continues as many scientists still use the name B. megatherium, sowing confusion...
million years ago, in South America. The group includes the heavily built Megatherium (given its name 'great beast' by Georges Cuvier) and Eremotherium. An...
sloths varied widely in size, with the largest, belonging to genera Megatherium, Lestodon, and Eremotherium, being around the size of elephants, with...
many species of ground sloths ranging up to the size of elephants (like Megatherium) inhabited both North and South America during the Pleistocene Epoch...
by some biologists to have evolved as protection against the extinct Megatherium Giant Ground Sloth.[citation needed] (in Portuguese) Astrocaryum aculeatissimum...
on local armadillos. From a jaw and tooth he identified the gigantic Megatherium, then from Cuvier's description thought the armour was from this animal...
horses, and woolly rhinoceros Pleistocene of South America, including Megatherium and two Glyptodon The evolution of anatomically modern humans took place...
"mastodon", and that a large skeleton dug up in present-day Argentina was of Megatherium, a giant, prehistoric ground sloth. He also established two ungulate...
Cuvieronius and 18 other species of vertebrates including giant tortoises, Megatherium, Glyptotherium, Toxodon, extinct horses, paleo-llamas. The site stands...
Tomegatherion, a fictional character in the video game Body Harvest Megatherium, an extinct genus of ground sloths Therion (disambiguation) This disambiguation...
of a megatherium, an extinct gigantic sloth, were discovered by miners around Omai and the Oko Creek, Cuyuni River. A model of the megatherium was created...
an enormous fossil graveyard, including bones from the Pterodactylus, Megatherium, Deinotherium, Glyptodon, a mastodon and the preserved body of a prehistoric...
the Americas contained later mammals like the megatheriid ground sloth Megatherium and the mammutid proboscidean Mammut (later known informally as a "mastodon")...
inhabitants of the Pampas include the giant elephant-sized ground sloth Megatherium americanum, along side the smaller (though still large) ground sloths...
discovery of a well-preserved fossilized skull of the giant ground sloth Megatherium near San Eduardo del Mar, Province of Buenos Aires. According to paleontologists...
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...
in this region—such as the armadillo Eutatus, the giant ground sloth Megatherium, and the dog Dusicyon avus—the Pampas may have been a refuge zone provided...
Some of the more relevant components of the museum collections are: A Megatherium brought from Argentina in 1789. A Diplodocus donated by Andrew Carnegie...
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