自然英语

Giant Sloth


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The giant sloth is anextinct animal that could be distinguished by its large size. The species firstappeared 35 million years ago. They evolved from the Promegatherium, which wasanother large mammal, in South America. Their preferred habitat was forests.Later on, or 8 million years ago, they started migrating towards North America.During this era, a lot of other animals were migrating. It went extinct around12 to 10 thousand years ago. This was a ground sloth so it didn’t climb treeslike sloths today.
Like modern sloths, the giant sloth was anherbivore. It ate the leaves of the yucca tree, agave plants, and grasses.Since they were so tall, they were able to easily  grab the branches. Somespecies of the sloth were 10 feet tall and weighed one ton, while other speciescould stand up to 20 feet tall and weighed 4 tons. There isn’t a solid answeras to why prehistoric animals were so much larger back then, but somescientists say it is due to more oxygen in the air or simply more space. Thesloths could be more than double the height of a tall human.
There are lots of theories as to why the giantsloth species went extinct, and more than one factor probably contributed toit. The most likely explanation is that they were hunted to extinction  byhuman hunters. Another theory is that the end of the ice age caused theirextinction. 
For wild Suzhou, I'm  palm tree and thankyou for listening.

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自然英语By 荒野苏州自然频道

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