#slothmonday Nº 1

garra de lestodon / lestodon claw

 

What is a sloth?

Sloths are a group of mammals that nowadays live hanging from the trees and move really slow. However, this was not always the case; more than 10,000 years ago there were, in vast regions of the Americas, several species of sloths that reached body masses of about 5 tonnes. These animals were not slow at all and they definitely did not sleep on trees.

But, what do they have in common, then? The easiest thing to see is the really big claws they have in all four limbs, which were also a feature of the giant sloths. And if we look at their teeth, we will find they have no incisives nor true canines.

Follow us later on for another #slothmonday to learn about the unique vertebrae these animals had and about their unusual locomotion styles.

Publication

New article about the fossils:

Description of the stylohyal bone of a giant sloth (Lestodon armatus)

P. Sebastián Tambusso, H. Gregory McDonald, and Richard A. Fariña
Copyright Society for Vertebrate Paleontology, April 2015

Read: http://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2015/1119-stylohyal-of-a-giant-sloth

Richard @ TEDx Cabo Polonio

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP7PW2Dwym8[/youtube]

New publication

New publication: Fariña 2015. Bone Surface Modifications, Reasonable Certainty, and Human Antiquity in the Americas: The Case of the Arroyo Del Vizcaíno Site.

Read the article here.

Richard Fariña at the IV Congreso del Futuro, Chile.

Richard Fariña at the IV Congreso del Futuro, in Chile: La encrucijada del planeta. ¿Enfrentamos una sexta extinción?   January 17, 2015.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fXpSrTL1No[/youtube]