Talk:Megatherium

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But now time for sleep. 20 hours. But soon I shall return, and add more stuff to this. --Thomas Powers

[edit] Cleanup

Numerous opinions need to be removed, otherwise looks good.--Easterlingman 19:35, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

The plural of θήρ is θηρóς. Latinising it to theria is questionable. 80.255 22:07, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

...with African elephant, regarding tonnage

I moved 'Megatheriinae and cryptozoology' to the Mylodon article. The accounts there are about the Mylodon, not Megatherium, the preserved hide especially.

[edit] Are you Suuuuure?

Are you sure that Sid was a giant sloth? I mean, he could have been a young one, but still he would have been half the size of Manny, if they could reach twenty feet tall on two legs, as Sid is constantly standing on.

I'm sure Sid was a giant sloth, but I don't know how accurate the movie was. Jonathan W 03:19, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Well...Sid is a ground sloth, but not sure if he's a giant sloth... 211.72.108.18 06:35, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What contradiction?

Am I missing something? The African elephant (or rather Loxodonta) article doesn't seem to say anything about the Megatherium. As one would expect.

[edit] Middlemarch

There's also an allusion to the Megatherium in George Eliot's Middlemarch.

From Chapter 6 (part of the narrator's discussion of Mrs. Cadwallader): "All the more did the affairs of the great world interest her, when communicated in the letters of high-born relations: the way in which fascinating younger sons had gone to the dogs by marrying their mistresses; the fine old-blooded idiocy of young Lord Tapir, and the furious gouty humors of old Lord Megatherium; the exact crossing of genealogies which had brought a coronet into a new branch and widened the relations of scandal,--these were topics of which she retained details with the utmost accuracy, and reproduced them in an excellent pickle of epigrams, which she herself enjoyed the more because she believed as unquestionably in birth and no-birth as she did in game and vermin."

68.20.13.147 06:13, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

There's an allusion in Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Wimsey mysteries to "..the great Megatherium crash.." in the stock exchange. Referred to in <ital>Strong Poison</ital> , and other works of Sayers.

[edit] Giants in Patagonia

I saw an episode on the History Channel seried, Digging for the Truth (Josh Bernstein), called "Giants of Patagonia" that explored the megatherium and the mylodon. The show said that the megatherium was around 6 meters tall.

[edit] Theriously, now

The plural of θήρ is not θηρóς in classical Greek. θηρóς is the genitive singular. Θηρες is the nominative plural. θήρ is a third declension noun. If I remember correctly, there is no nominative plural in classical Greek that ends in –óς.

The -ia (or -a) ending is a perfectly legitimate neuter plural ending in both Latin and classical Greek. It occurs in other taxonomical terms, such as Loxodonta.

[edit] Six Claws?

That sounds quite remarkable, it would be the only mammalian species with more than 5 digits if it were true, unless it was a panda-like pseudodigit. Can somebody provide a reference for that statement? Cameron 13:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Well according to the Ground Sloth page there is in fact a species with an extra digit, but it has 5 digits and 4 claws instead of 4 digits and 3 claws. Somebody made an assumption... Cameron 13:42, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Darwin & Megatherium

Charles Darwin discovered a fossil of some species of Megathere in South America in the 1830s. Was he the first naturalist to find such a beast? It seems likely that locals had been finding fossils of them before but disregarded them.

MrG -- 4 Nov 06

[edit] Giant Monsters

How did the Megatherium defend itself from the Smilodon? I mean, how did they show it like? Dora Nichov 10:38, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Just curious... (But I really do want an answer...) Dora Nichov 10:39, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

the same way an elephant defends itself from a lion--sin-man 09:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

i have read that they would swipe their claws Cieltsd 00:45, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Mind, dangerous as they are, elephants are sometimes hunted and killed by lions. Is it then safe to assert that Megatherium (the size of an elephant) was "far too large" for Smilodon (bigger than a lion)? Orcoteuthis (talk) 22:35, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gallery

Without captions the gallery seems to be fairly pointless. As someone unfamiliar with this subject they are not self explanatory. If indeed they demonstrate important points they should be integrated with the article and captioned. What do they add that is not already shown by the skeleton photo in the article?Beligaronia (talk) 09:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)