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| Bit creepy. Image credit aiunau.org. |
The Giant on the Riverbank
When the first fossil of Megatherium was discovered on the bank of the Argentinian Lujan River in 1788, it was understandably quite a shock. According to local tribes, the bones belonged to a giant mole which had come out from under the ground and died because of the sunlight. But did the locals really claim that? History isn't clear.
Things didn't get better after Georges Cuvier identified it as a sloth, since scientists began to speculate that it could have burrowed, or even lived in the trees. It wasn't until Richard Owen, perhaps the biggest "villain" in scientific history, examined more specimens when it was finally determined to have been a terrestrial quadruped.
Even today, there's still a great deal of mystery surrounding Megatherium. Why did it go extinct? Did it go extinct? And was it actually a vicious predator? (No. The answer is no.)
Jefferson's Lion
In 1796, future American president Thomas Jefferson was sent some bones, which he believed were from a giant lion, which he had named "Megalonyx". Jefferson, who was deeply religious and never accepted evolution or even extinction as facts, asked Meriwether Louis and William Clark to try and find a living specimen in America. They failed, and it was not until 1799 when the bones were finally identified as belonging to a ground sloth, by Caspar Wistar.
The King's Folly
Shortly after Megatherium was discovered, King Charles IV of Spain had the original Lujan skeleton shipped to Madrid. For years, the only ground sloth bones in Europe were in his private collection, until Charles Darwin brought dozens of fossils back from the voyage of the Beagle. The King, however, was apparently not satisfied with having a monopoly on just the bones, because he sent people to South America to catch a live ground sloth. Scientists laughed at him then, and are laughing at him today. "But since then," Heuvelmans notes, "much evidence has shown that the king was nearer to the truth than the scientists."
His people found nothing, but years after, the Daily Express sponsored two English expeditions to Patagonia. They also found nothing, but that might have had something to do with the fact that they returned to England before they even got halfway across Patagonia.
The Ameghino Chronicles
Florentio Ameghino was a South American palaeontologist, and a very prolific namer. Other palaeontologists believed he was too quick to create new species from any remains he found. One such event occurred in 1898, sparking one of the most dramatic chronicles in cryptozoological history.
In 1898, someone showed little ball-shaped bones to Ameghino. He recognised them as coming from a mylodontid ground sloth, and claimed they were from a living species. This is because, only a few years earlier, his friend Ramon Lista, an Argentinian governor, had claimed to have seen an animal which was like a pangolin in shape and size, but had shaggy red hair. He shot at it, but it simply wandered off into the bush.
Ameghino named the new species Neomylodon listai, in honour of the recently-killed Lista (he greatly enjoyed naming animals after famous figures), but his name was not accepted. Because soon after, a patch of skin from "Lista's new Mylodon" was found in a cave. It dated from 10,000 years ago. Ameghino lost his temper, claiming that Lista's animal was too small to be a ground sloth, and that nothing so large could survive without arousing the attentions of the native Indians - despite the fact that he himself had described local Indian legends about similar animals. The matter is still at a dead end today.
Sheepsquatch, Beaver-Eater
This isn't the blogs usual territory, but this is a special day, so it can be excused. See, "Sheepsquatch" and the "Beaver-Eater" are both exclusively North American creatures. Well-sourced information on Sheepsquatch is severely lacking, so let's talk about the Beaver-Eater. It's meant to be a slothlike animal living in the Yukon, which tears open beaver lodges and, as its name suggests, eats the inhabitants. Not very ground sloth-like behaviour, unless it's for some reason evolved to become a predator.
As a note, "Sasquatch" comes from "Salish", a now-dead term used to refer to Native Americans. So when people think they're being clever by adding "-squatch" onto the name of any unknown animals, they're basically just saying it's a Native American sheep, or a Native American bat.
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| I have no idea what this is, but it was on the Sloth Day website. |
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