Giant sloths lived alongside humans in South America for millennia
In the Pleistocene Epoch, South America was home to now-extinct animals, including the sabre-toothed cat Smilodon, the giant ground sloth Megatherium and the llama-like Macrauchenia
MAURICIO ANTON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
Molecular dating has shown that several extinct creatures, such as giant sloths and mammoths, survived in South America much later than previously thought, raising questions about the root causes behind some of Earth’s most recent large animal extinctions.
“There is no consensus in the scientific community about the cause or causes that led to the extinction of megafauna in South America,” says Fábio Henrique Cortes Faria at the…
