I have a soft spot for giant ground sloths. I think part of that affection comes from this old, stop-motion video on fossil mammals I watched countless times as a kid. Sure, Platybelodon, Glyptodon, and the other mammals were all quite strange, but the Megatherium just seemed so stupid and cuddly that I wanted to give it a hug. (But not the way the Smilodon does, at about 5:26 in the video below.)

I’m not alone in my fascination with the big ol’ fuzzy lug. Before the discovery of the dinosaurs, Megatherium was one of the biggest fossil