Fourthly, the Mylodon Darwinii, a closely related genus of little inferior size.
The great size of the bones of the Megatheroid animals, including the Megatherium, Megalonyx, Scelidotherium, and Mylodon, is truly wonderful.
We may doubt whether they have thus changed: if the Megatherium,
Mylodon, Macrauchenia, and Toxodon had been brought to Europe from La Plata, without any information in regard to their geological position, no one would have suspected that they had coexisted with still living sea-shells; but as these anomalous monsters coexisted with the Mastodon and Horse, it might at least have been inferred that they had lived during one of the latter tertiary stages.
The remains of the long-extinct ground sloth --
Mylodon darwinii -- were found in a cave in Ultima Esperanza, southern Chile, and brought to the UK in 1897 for "research" never to be returned.
Benefiting from the remains of an ancient giant ground sloth, or
Mylodon darwinii, researchers have uncovered important genomic data.
Had I been standing here 14,000 years ago, the
mylodon might have been a real threat, but now, this life-size statue is simply a reminder of the enormous creatures that once roamed Patagonia's fittingly largescale landscapes.
Por otra parte, estudios biomecanicos y morfogeometricos del aparato masticador han sugerido que los milodontidos de hocico ancho (Glossotherium robustum y Lestodon armatus) se alimentaban probablemente de pastos y plantas herbaceas, mientras que las formas de hocico angosto (
Mylodon darwini y Scelidotherium leptocephalum) seleccionaban plantas o partes de plantas, incluyendo pastos y/u hojas de arboles y arbustos (Bargo y Vizcaino, 2008).
One boy dug into his pocket and revealed the coarse reddish hair of a
mylodon. "It's from a giant sloth." He laughed.
Asi fue como en Punta Alta y en la Patagonia, Darwin encontro 9 restos fosiles de animales gigantes extinguidos: tres cabezas y huesos de Megatherium; un Megalonyx; un esqueleto casi completo de Scelidotherium, que debio ser tan grande como un rinoceronte; un
Mylodon Darwinii, un poco menor que el anterior; un desdentado gigantesco; una caparazon de un animal gigantesco muy parecido al armadillo; una especie extinta de caballo; un diente de un paquidermo, el Macrauchenia, notable cuadrupedo tan grande como un camello; un Toxodon, uno de los animales mas extranos que se hayan descubierto jamas, parecido al elefante (Darwin, 1845/1983, ver capitulos V y VI).
mylodon - large (bear-sized) extinct edentate mammal of the Pleistocene in South America