Tapirs and Sloths

Tapir – Tapirus veroensis

The Tapir, like the Capybara and Spectacled Bear, is a species that continues to live in South America today. It is a member of the horse family, but it’s devoted to river environments. It may hide beneath the waters surface all day, using its trunk-like nose to snatch an occasional breath of air. In the late evening and throughout the night, cloaked by the forest shadows, it browses along the river banks and forest trails. It stops munching regularly to listen for danger. It, too, was hunted by the secretive jaguar.





Giant Ground Sloth – Megatherium

The Giant Ground Sloth, was one of the largest mammals known, weighing up to eight tons. Another inhabitant of the forest its great claws provided it with serious protection.







Eremotherium is an extinct genus of Ground Sloth that lived in North America and South America during the Pleistocene epoch. It went extinct around 11,000 years ago.

Below is Hermann’s reconstruction or a Giant Ground Sloth from a fossilized skull.