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Bones from the sloth Megalonyx jeffersonii
Photo: Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History / Facebook
Excitement at the Tara Redwood School in California: While searching for crayfish, some students came across a real treasure. They found a bone from a prehistoric giant sloth.
The Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History in northern California announced that it is now in possession of a prehistoric left arm bone from a Jefferson sloth (Megalonyx jeffersonii).
It was discovered by a group of elementary school children who were actually looking for crayfish in a stream in the Santa Cruz Mountains. "They built a dam and looked for crayfish," a teacher at the school, Bryn Evans, told broadcaster KSBW. "They were in the mud pulling things out and then one of them came and said, 'It's not a stick, it's a bone.'"
The valuable piece is now being examined by the museum's fossil experts to determine its possible origin, it said. “Fossils are a great way to get people interested in the past,” wrote museum director Felicia Van Stolk in a statement. »We are thrilled that the students have made this important discovery that will inspire generations of museum visitors and scientists.«
The giant sloth Megalonyx jeffersonii was a leaf eater and lived in North America during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. It could grow up to three meters tall and weighed around 1000 kilograms.
The fossil could be between 11,500 and 300,000 years old. The giant sloth owes its name to former US President Thomas Jefferson, who described its first discovery in Kentucky in 1796 in a letter to the American Philosophical Society.
The museum is exhibiting the exhibit until May 26th.
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