Megatheriidae

Postdlf · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikidata/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- MegatheriaPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 23 million years on record.
The record covers at least 23.04 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 27.3 Mya to 0 Mya.
357 occurrences of Megatheriidae on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
357 occurrences- Oligoceneunder 1%
- Miocene19%
- Pliocene8%
- Pleistocene71%
- Holocene1%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
82 formations
- Ituzaingo Formation11
- Pisco Formation7
- Solimões Formation7
- Santa Cruz Formation7
- Andalhuala Formation5
- Touro Passo Formation5
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The named rock units Megatheriidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 58 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 204 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Megatheriidae and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Megatheriidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
1,884 taxa- Eremotherium laurillardi71 sites
- Equus51 sites
- Eremotherium34 sites
- Notiomastodon platensis32 sites
- Megatherium americanum28 sites
- Megatherium27 sites
- Toxodon23 sites
- Smilodon populator21 sites
- Glyptodon18 sites
- Gomphotheriidae18 sites
- Pampatherium18 sites
- Panochthus18 sites
- Glyptodon clavipes17 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus17 sites
- Hippidion16 sites
- Mixotoxodon larensis16 sites
- Neochoerus16 sites
- Toxodon platensis16 sites
- Macrauchenia patagonica15 sites
- Cuvieronius tropicus14 sites
- Glyptotherium14 sites
- Mammuthus columbi14 sites
- Tapirus14 sites
- Toxodontidae14 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 262 sites for Megatheriidae, and this reads 240 of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
203 references- A new specimen of Eremotherium laurillardi (Xenarthra, Megatheriidae) from the Late Pleistocene of Chiapas, southern of Mexico, and comments about the distribution of the species in Mexico29
- A systematic reassessment and paleogeographic review of fossil Xenarthra from Peru21
- A new giant megatheriine ground sloth (Mammalia: Xenarthra: Megatheriidae) from the late Blancan to early Irvingtonian of Florida10
- Fossil Pleistocene to Sub-Recent Mammals from Northeastern Brazil. I - Edentata Megalonychidae7
- Georeferencing fossiliferous localities from Solimões and Acre Basins (Brazil) -what we know so far about Solimões Formation and future perspectives6
- Guatemala's Late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean) fauna: Revision and interpretation6
- Xenarthrans of the collection of Santiago Roth from the Pampean Region of Argentina (Pleistocene), in Zurich, Switzerland5
- Overview of the geology and vertebrate biochronology of the Leisey Shell Pit Local Fauna, Hillsborough County, Florida5
- Ground sloths from the Friasian La Venta fauna, with additions to the pre-Frasian Coyaima fauna of Colombia, South America5
- New Pleistocene Cave Faunas of the Andes of Central Perú: Radiocarbon Ages and the Survival of Low Latitude, Pleistocene DNA4
- Mamíferos Cenozoicos4
- Vertebrados do Quaternario do Municipio de Cacapava do Sul, Estado do Rio Grande do Sul4
Each of the 357 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 191 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2

Picture of Megatheriidae
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Postdlf
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itMegatheria through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1821