Megatherium americanum was one of the largest species of ground
sloth, a group of closely related animals once common in the
Americas, particularly South America. Its scientific name
translates as ‘a big animal from America’. There were once many
different kinds of ground sloth but all are now extinct. They
were a widespread and successful group of mammals - their
fossils have been found from Patagonia to Alaska. The last
ground sloths seem to have died out about 10,000 years ago when
humans colonised the Americas. A model of Megatherium as a
biped. Sir Richard Owen and William Buckland, Dean of
Westminster, collaborated on this reconstruction. The giant
ground sloth is believed to have weighed about 2.5 tonnes, about
the same as a female Indian elephant. It is a distant relative
of the living tree sloths. Its ancestors were also tree sloths
and these extinct giants retained many anatomical features which
reflected their tree-living origins, such as: Megatherium had a
slightly larger tropical relative known a