Parocnus
Parocnus is an extinct genus of sloth native to Cuba and Hispaniola, belonging to the family Megalocnidae. It was a terrestrial ground sloth, being the second largest Caribbean sloth after Megalocnus, with the body mass of the various species of the genus estimated at around 32–79 kilograms (71–174 lb), comparable to a pig.

Sophia M. Beery (artwork) Robert K. McAfee Renato Rimoli, Juan Almonte, Phillip Lehman, and Siobhán B. Cooke (other p… · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/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
- MegalocninaePBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Megalonychidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Megalonychidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
5 occurrences of Parocnus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
5 occurrences- Pleistocene96%
- Holocene4%
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.
Parocnus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Parocnus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
31 taxa- Crocodylus2 sites
- Crocodylus rhombifer2 sites
- Nesophontes2 sites
- Acratocnus1 site
- Acratocnus antillensis1 site
- Aquila1 site
- Aves1 site
- Boromys offella1 site
- Boromys torrei1 site
- Capromys1 site
- Capromys acevedo1 site
- Capromys pilorides1 site
- Cathartidae1 site
- Chelonoidis cubensis1 site
- Crocodylia1 site
- Geocapromys columbianus1 site
- Isolobodon portoricensis1 site
- Margarobyas1 site
- Megalocnus rodens1 site
- Mesocapromys kraglievichi1 site
- Mesocnus torrei1 site
- Neocnus1 site
- Neocnus gliriformis1 site
- Ornimegalonyx oteroi1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Parocnus, and this reads all 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
5 references- Arcos cigomáticos completos en el perezoso Neocnus del cuaternario tardío de la provincia La Altagracia, República Dominicana1
- The fossil avifauna of the tar seeps Las Breas de San Felipe, Matanzas, Cuba1
- The Cuban Crocodile (Crocodylus rhombifer) from Late Quaternary Underwater Cave Deposits in the Dominican Republic1
- Nueva especie de ave fósil (Strigiformes: Tytonidae) del Pleistoceno superior de Cuba1
- Genera and new species of ground sloths from the Pleistocene of Cuba1
Each of the 5 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. 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 content1
Picture of Parocnus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Sophia M. Beery (artwork) Robert K. McAfee Renato Rimoli, Juan Almonte, Phillip Lehman, and Siobhán B. Cooke (other p…
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Parocnus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Parocnus”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itMegalocninae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Miller 1929