Mammal
Megalonyx
It used its powerful claws to grip trees while feeding from them.
Megalonyx is part of a history of sloths that arrived in North America before a great fauna exchange between the Americas.
Three stages. One companion.
Game artwork
AI-generated, stylized game illustrations. These designs and growth stages are imaginative, not scientific reconstructions.
Megalonyx at a glance
- Diet
- Herbivore
- A plant-based diet is inferred from its anatomy and comparisons with related animals; not all herbivores ate the same plants.
- When it lived
- Neogene / Quaternary
- Group
- Megalonychidae
- Megalonychids
- Fossil locations
- Alaska
- Places where fossils have been found
Beyond the game
The real Megalonyx
The most recent and largest species could reach about three meters long and weigh more than a tonne. Its lineage was part of a movement of sloths into North America before the Great American Biotic Interchange.
Its powerful claws helped it hold onto trees from which it fed. Being a sloth relative does not mean it shared the small size of sloths alive today.
This grouping describes evolutionary relationships. Its members share ancestors; they do not form a chain in which one must turn into another.
Fossil discoveries
Selected fossil records · present-day map
Map references
Map: Natural Earth, public domain. Fossil records: linked collections and publications.Sources & text credits
Explore the references behind this profile.
- Megalonyx
Wikipedia contributors · Spanish source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Megalonyx
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Megalonychidae
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Sloths
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
Educational text adapted in English from the existing Wikipedia-backed Dinosgacha catalogue and linked articles by Wikipedia contributors.
Existing English translations have been selected and arranged for this encyclopedia. Repeated period and diet text is omitted where those fields already carry it. Unknown facts remain unfilled; unreviewed geological age phrases are omitted and period labels replace numerical ages.
The adapted educational text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0. This text license does not apply to the game illustrations.