#jeffersons ground sloth

[paigeoforacle]

Some dead friends from a weekend trip to the museum.

[cyrus-okapi]

Jeffersons Ground Sloth

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Throwback Thursday: Thomas Jefferson

I bet you Never expected me to bring up a former president of the US in a science blog but here we are. Thomas Jefferson actually made some huge contributions to the paleontology community.

Jefferson had an almost obsessed interest in mammoths. He had a fairly large collection of fossils at his home.

His second great paleontological interest came in 1799 when he was sent some huge claws (and some arm bones) from a cave in Virginia. He named the animal Megalonyx.

Jefferson was convinced Megalonyx was still alive somewhere. That was part of why he sent Lewis and Clark off on their expedition. He was hoping they would find a living specimen of this and a Mastodon. Let's face it, that would have been really stinking cool.

He even thought they might have found one when he received this letter: an Animal is found of a brown colour, much larger than a Bear, of astonishing strength, activity, & fierceness … a Nail [was] taken from the Claw of one killed by the party of Indians to which he belonged but not before it had torn several of them into pieces. This Nail or horny part of the Claw is said to measure six inches in length.

Unfortunately, this was the animals they were probably describing:

Jefferson wrote up a scientific description of Megalonyx and due to this many have dubbed him the father of American Paleontology. He didn't recognize what he actually had though. He had nothing to go off of because he had never been to Central or South America where it's living relatives were. He thought the claws belonged to an American Lion (which did exist, he just didn't have their bones).

He also noted that it appeared to have marks made by tools suggesting they coexisted with people (which is accurate).

But what did he actually have? Megalonyx is a giant ground sloth, the las ground sloth to live in North America. This was determined by Caspar Wistar in 1799, two years after Jefferson's initial description.

Now you know about the beginnings of American Paleontology. Tune in tomorrow to learn about Icaronycteris. Fossilize you later!

[bestcryptids]

One of the unsolved mysteries in cryptozoology (besides whether or not the cryptids exist of course) is a strange statement Thomas Jefferson made about ground sloths. According to him, there were "symptoms of its survival", however what these symptoms were is still unknown.

[cansomebodytellmewhatsgoingon]

Would love to see one of those "fake" nature documentaries (like Walking with Dinosaurs type of fake) that show how the Earth would've still looked with little or no human interference. Like seeing a Caspian tiger hunting an aurochs or a Steller's sea cow colony during the mating season. This could even be done with extant animals, such as seeing a pride of lions in the Balkans or the once vast herds of bison or pronghorn thundering through the Great Plains. Imagine seeing a recreation of the heavily degraded Atlantic Forest, or tallgrass prairies, or Mesopotamia's cedar forests. You could even hypothesize and include Ice Age animals that might've gone extinct due to human activity. Imagine seeing a Jefferson's ground sloth defend itself against grey wolves or a Notiomastodon helping birds hunt insects by disturbing the underbrush. I would pay thousands to see this

[oh-its-suds]

Tbf tho Europe has bigger megafauna than us. Thomas Jefferson was like really pissed about it. So pissed that he gave Lewis and Clark a secret mission to find giant ground sloths in America

I don't want anyone to take this the wrong way but Europe is kinda like a miniature America. All the landscapes and trees and stuff are SMALL, they're little versions of the stuff we got going on over here. Even your big things, like the alps, are so cute. You could put a fun roller coaster up there and make it a little ride for the kids.

[cmipalaeo]

Hey bro cool flowstone what’s on the other side?

…o

[cryptid-quest]

On This Day in Cryptid History

March 10th: In 1797, Thomas Jefferson presented a paper on the bones of a creature he named Megalonyx (giant claw) which he thought belonged to a living creature yet to be discovered. It was later determined to belong to an extinct ground sloth.

[ask-tfa-blitzwing]

I gotta say the koala razor looks cute! it's less scarier than this guy:

this mf here is a mix of a kodiak bear and a jefferson's ground sloth. no I'm not tryna brag.

“It’s a little cursed to imagine like a koala razor or something. Someones gonna draw that now and it’ll look badass and im gonna be pissed”

Okay

It dont look very badass but i mean its a koala so

[shadow27]

Hey you guyyyyyysss!

[cmipalaeo]

Sloth delivery a success, 13 boxes of material including a complete skull; ironically enough, it was accomplished with great rapidity and efficiency

Sloth delivery day!