The skeleton of Megatherium, as figured in William Buckland’s Geology and Mineralogy Considered With Reference to Natural Theology.

There is something fantastically weird about giant ground sloths. Creatures from a not-too-distant past, close enough in time that their hair and hide is sometimes found in circumstances of exceptional preservation, these creatures have no living equivalent. Their arboreal cousins still live in the tropics of the western hemisphere, but they can hardly be considered proxies for the ground sloths of the Pleistocene.

The most famous of these ancient beasts was Megatherium, an exceptionally large ground sloth which has been fascinating paleontologists and the public for over 200 years, but what is less well known by members of the public