Giant Sloth-the sleeping threat, page 1

Here's some links dream, some photos too. I think that they might still be alive, after all, they thought the Giant Panda was a myth until a hundred years ago.

www.cmnh.org...

www.science-frontiers.com...

Well, apparently, sloths are crazier than I thought.

Link

There's the Michigan Dogman. I think it's a Shasta Ground Sloth if it really exists. The Gable film IMO is a long haired Gorilla. The Shasta a small one
about 5-6 ft tall. There may be a Giant Ground Sloth in the Pine Barrens of NJ. My brother saw something that fit the description around 1976 out in the pine barrens. No he wasn't drunk or on drugs.

Drawing of a Shasta Sloth
www.tarpits.org...

Footprint of a Sloth
www.examiner.com...

[edit on 2-8-2009 by Sargoth]

It was a herbivorous animal and, although it could stand on its hind legs, using its tail as a balancing tripod, to reach for vegetation, the giant ground sloth fed chiefly on terrestrial plants.

en.wikipedia.org...

Just remember guys, this guy was a herbivore. Modern sloths are omnivores and eat insects and small lizards, along with plants. They are hardly dangerous. And I don't know about the Giant Ground ones, but their modern counterparts are really slow. They were super heavy and their skeletal system protected them. So I'm going to infer that the Giant Ground Sloths were/are very slow as well. And virtually harmless.

So. You know what this means, cryptozoologists! If you see one, you could probably try to approach it, because chances are that it won't hurt you- it will try to run. And it probably cannot run very fast. Get a hair sample and we're good to go.

reply to post by ravenshadow13

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I don't know about that, they lived alongside predators such as the saber toothed cat. The modern sloth survives because it's so slow nothing notices it and life grows in it's fur. A giant ground sloth was large and noticeable. It had huge claws which would be deadly to an attacking predator

One of my earliest threads.
Hope it helps.
Living Giant Sloth?

reply to post by Zoopedia

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It's not a predator. They have fossils, the teeth show that it is clearly herbivorous. It would move very slowly because it was extremely heavy and bulky. It was a grazing herbivore...

Rising on its powerful hind legs and using its tail to form a tripod, Megatherium could support its massive body weight while using the curved claws on its long forelegs to pull down branches with the choicest leaves.

en.wikipedia.org...

Richard Fariña and Ernesto Blanco of the Universidad de la República in Montevideo have analysed a fossil skeleton of M. americanum and discovered that its olecranon - the part of the elbow to which the triceps muscle attaches - was very short. This adaptation is found in carnivores and optimises speed rather than strength. The researchers say this would have enabled M. americanum to use its claws like daggers.
...
Paleontologist Richard Farina suggested in 1997 that the giant sloth may well have been a carnivore, although this is a controversial claim.[5]

So it generally looks like a harmless grazing herbivore except for one scientist who claims that it was a vicious carnivore.
That's weird.

I'm going to go with herbivore, as shown by:
www.sdnhm.org...
www.museum.state.il.us...

Herbivores who used their claws to pull down branches.

[edit on 8/3/2009 by ravenshadow13]

reply to post by ravenshadow13

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Something being a herbovore doesn't stop it being aggressive or dangerous. Take Africa for example. A continent full of crocodiles, lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas etc. Th most dangerous animal in Africa however is the herbivorous Hippotamus

reply to post by Zoopedia

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Hippos are defensive. They live in areas where they need to protect themselves from all sorts of predators. They are also extremely territorial and have anatomical mechanisms to defend themselves. They are also closely related to Cetaceans, which are carnivores for the most part. And which were carnivores when they lived on land.

Xenarthrans have the lowest metabolic rates among the therians.
Xenarthra includes the anteaters, tree sloths, and armadillos, as well as the extinct ground sloths, glyptodonts and pampatheres. In the past, these families were classified together with the pangolins and aardvarks as the order Edentata (meaning toothless, because the members do not have front incisor teeth or molars, or have poorly-developed molars)

en.wikipedia.org...

These guys are slow. They're not closely related to anything that is carnivorous past eating small lizards. They don't have defense mechanisms beyond having physical protection. Those claws were not used for stabbing, they were used for pulling down trees.

They also became extinct. Obviously they did not evolve well enough to protect themselves, and it looks like humans may have hunted them out.

If it was aggressive or dangerous it would have survived better. If it was able to protect itself against humans, they wouldn't have hunted it to extinction. (Or supposed extinction.)

I did not say it was not dangerous because it was a herbivore. I said it was not dangerous because it was heavy, slow, with non-defensive claws. I said that all before this post. The fact that it was a herbivore means that it is not likely to go and eat you, and that it does not seem to have claws and teeth evolved in such a way as to be a strict predator.

[edit on 8/4/2009 by ravenshadow13]

reply to post by ravenshadow13

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Ok ok you win XD. All I'm saying is this animal is extinct as far as we know and has the ability to easily kill you if it wanted. It doesn't hurt to be cautious. Body parts can have mutliple uses. Claws used for pulling down trees could double as an anti sabre toothed cat weapon.

reply to post by Zoopedia

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That is what that other scientist hypothesized. But it doesn't seem right to me, it could be.

I hope these guys are still around somewhere. That would be awesome! But if not, their modern cousins are still pretty sweet.


I bet those claws were good for scratching. Just like that. =)

Soooooo cute.

reply to post by EyesWideShut

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Predators aka humans.

To be honest though, if it's not a giant sloth, what on earth could people be seeing that looks like a giant sloth?

I'm looking for any suggestions, guys. Something that looks like a giant sloth but is not a giant sloth in North America.

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