A Tunnel Dug by a Giant Ground Sloth in Brazil Over 10,000 Years Ago




A Tunnel Dug by a Giant Ground Sloth in Brazil Over 10,000 Years Ago


Known as Paleoburrows, these enormous tunnels can measure up to 2,000 feet long and over six feet tall. It is believed that the Brazilian tunnels were created by giant ground sloths.


How were they discovered? In the early 2000s, Professor Heinrich Frank of the University of Rio Grande do Sul was driving by a construction site when something caught his eye. There was a strange hole that had been revealed by the site's excavators, and Frank wondered where it led.


A few weeks later, he made his way back and entered the hole. Crawling down the 15-foot-long opening, he noticed claw marks across the ceiling of the cave. Given his expertise, he knew that no natural phenomenon would create a cave with those characteristics, and that it must have been done by a large animal.


The animal would have been what is known as a Megatherium, an extinct genus of ground sloths endemic to South America.


Twitter Credit: historyinmemes


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