Giant sloth unveiled at the National Museum

Apr 11, 2010 News

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The dinosaur is as familiar an animal to the average person as a lion or horse with one exception – it has been extinct some 65 million years and no one has ever seen a real one.
Dinosaurs were immense creatures on a scale that no longer exists in the land-based animal kingdom, but what most people might not know is that they were not the only giants that roamed the earth; nor that these large beasts or Mega Fauna walked the earth alongside humans unlike the dinosaur.
Nonetheless, it is true. Up till some 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, humans in South America and around the globe shared the planet with enormous beasts. There were the woolly mammoths of Siberia, the Sabre-Toothed Tiger that roamed the North American Plains and even here in South America there were animals of similarly immense proportions.
Native to the continent were the Glyptodon – a member of the Armadillo family that was as big as a Volkswagon Beetle and weighed in at several tons. And then there was the Megatherium or Giant Ground Sloth, of which the National Museum now has a life-sized replica on exhibit for the general public.
The replica which is an extrapolation of what the animal might have looked like, based on fossil remains and footprints, stands some 15 feet tall and weighs in at approximately three tons.
The exhibit which was formally unveiled Friday evening at the National Museum is the result of a collaborative effort on the part of the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sport, Eerepami Regenwaldstiftiftung of Germany and the Guyana Bank for Trade Industry and Commerce (GBTI).
The German Ambassador stated that it was not his Government but his people — civil society— who care for the past and the future that made this feat possible.
He noted that it was amazing that so much could be done from just a few bones. He hoped that it would inspire the many students who would see the exhibit to ensure that those animals which still exist continue to be protected.
Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Dr. Frank Anthony, pointed out that although some archeologists and anthropologists have peeled back the curtain from the centuries past, here in Guyana through the artifacts, bone remains and earth stratifications, that research goes unknown. According to Anthony, this information is not being diffused into the educational curriculums and to the general public at large.
However, the Ministry and the Museums are seeking to change that trend by making learning fun and engaging and incorporating current research. The exhibit is a reflection of this new mindset, he said.
Anthony recalled that the project got started when he assumed office and was informed by the Permanent Secretary at that time, Mr. Keith Booker, that there was a toe of the giant sloth in a cupboard in his office at the Ministry.
Discovered in 1999 by miners, knowledge of the find was initially directed to the Prime Minister’s Office but eventually ended up at the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, where during their investigations, the staff was informed that another set of bones was unearthed. Michael Vieira who donated the second set of bones that had been discovered to the museum had found them in the Oko Creek area. So in that one year alone there had been two recorded discoveries of Mega Fauna fossils.
Anthony even noted that there was an expedition last year that discovered the remains of whales and elephants which were ascertained through carbon dating to be some 8,400 years old.
Locally, the project was assisted by the funding from GBTI that allowed for the painting of the room, which even had a special floor made for the exhibit. Anthony estimated the monetary value of the project to be some $10M but the real value of the exhibition would be priceless to the people of Guyana.
He also noted that the art work in the room was all done by local Guyanese artists who took great pains to make the murals not just paintings but three dimensional representations of what the fauna of that age might have looked like.
The replica of the giant sloth dominates the room and almost touches the ceiling. It stands as a biped. The model is anatomically correct to the point that the sloth stands on the side of its feet as a result of its claws preventing the feet from laying flat.
The beast which is thought to have been a herbivore may have also scavenged for meat. Fossils of the Glyptodon –giant armadillos have been discovered where the animal was on its back, leading to the conclusion that the Megatherium might have been responsible. According to researchers, it was the only known animal large enough and strong enough to flip a Glyptodon on the South American continent.

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