Ground Sloth facts
While investigating facts about Ground Sloth Size and Ground Sloth Ice Age, I found out little known, but curios details like:
Avocados used to be eaten by giant ground sloths and were saved from extinction by humans
how big were ground sloths?
Sloths take a shit once a week. This is the only reason they will leave their tree, and when they do, it's pretty much a life or death situation for them as predators can easily catch them off guard while they are on the ground.
What is a ground sloth?
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what did the giant ground sloth eat. Here are 32 of the best facts about Ground Sloth Extinct and Ground Sloth Leather Ffxiv I managed to collect.
what ground sloth eats?
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Avocados are optimally adapted to be eaten and digested by an animal far larger than any alive today in the Americas. It is theorized they originally evolved their current form to allow their seeds to be spread by animals like the extinct giant ground sloth.
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The only animal large enough to eat avocados and spread its seed was the ground sloth
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When human beings arrived in the Americas, 14,000 years ago, they found ground sloths the weight of elephants; a beaver eight feet from nose to tail; armadillos like small cars; giant lions and sabertooths". NYT
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Many North American plants have fruit, spines, etc. believed to be adapted for an extinct giant mammal (megafauna) like mammoths and ground sloths
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There were once elephant-sized ground sloths called megatherium. They could weigh up to 4 tonnes and be as tall as 6 m (20 ft) in length from head to tail.
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Sloth is arboreal (lives in the trees) creature that will rarely move down to the ground. It will leave the safety of a tree once per week to urinate and defecate. When it is on the ground it becomes easy prey for predators.
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Megatherium, a prehistoric ground sloth the size of a rhinoceros, may have created burrows like colossal gophers
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No native animals presently eat the fruit of the Osage Orange tree. Scientists believe that the seeds were once dispersed by giant ground sloths and mastodons.
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Armor-Plated "Ground Sloths" Were 20 Feet Long and Weighed Over 4 Tons
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Thomas Jefferson wrote a paper on a giant ground sloth fossil and told Lewis and Clark to keep and eye out for a giant clawed beast.
Why did ground sloths go extinct?
You can easily fact check why do sloths go to the ground to poop by examining the linked well-known sources.
If you see a sloth walking on the forest ground you can be absolutley certain it's pooping, it's the only time they leave the trees and they only do it once a week, but they dump about 1/3 of their bodywieht while at it
Literally no one knows why a sloth takes a crap on the ground. - source
The Giant Ground Sloth (Megatherium) These giants typically stood at seven metres tall and weighed seven tons. They were active in North America until as recently as 11,000 years ago but appear to have been killed off either by Ice Age related changes of climate or by human hunting activity. - source
There used to be Ground Sloths in North America bigger than Elephants
When did the ground sloth go extinct?
Giant Ground Sloths (Megatherium sp.), which inhabited the Americas until about 11,000 years ago, could reach a height of 20ft (6m) or about as tall as a large T. rex
How did the giant ground sloth go extinct?
Some plants have an evolutionary left over from when large herbivores like the giant ground sloth roamed the earth. The plant grew these thorns as a defense and with no evolutionary pressure to get rid of them, they still have them today even though the sloths are long gone.
The Megatherium, a Giant Ground Sloth, Was One of the Biggest Land Mammals of It's Time Only Being Exceeded by Mammoths and Paraceratherium
Because sloths are held in place by their hooked claws, they don't fall to the ground when shot by poachers.
The existence of the now extinct giant ground living sloth. it lived on the american continent along with people and where the size of an elephant.
Until around 4,000 years ago, there was a population of dwarf ground sloths that lived in Cuba.