megatherium

American  

[meg-uh-theer-ee-uhm] / ˌmɛg əˈθɪər i əm /

noun

megatheriums, plural megatheria plural

1. any of the genus Megatherium of extinct giant ground sloths of the Pliocene and Pleistocene eras.

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megatherium Scientific  

/ mĕg′ə-thîr′ē-əm /

megatheriums plural

1. A large, extinct ground sloth of the genus Megatherium that lived from the Miocene through the Pleistocene Epochs, primarily in South America. It was as large as an elephant, had long curved claws and teeth only in the sides of its jaws, and ate plants. The megatherium was more closely related to the modern two-toed sloth than to the three-toed sloth.

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Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

noun

• megatheria
  plural
• megatheriums
  plural

Example Sentences

Professor Oliver Farrington, also of the Field Museum, found fossilized bones of a fantastic toadlike creature, probably the extinct megatherium, in the state of Bahia, Brazil.

From Time Magazine Archive

The skull belonged to a megatherium, a mammoth version of a sloth.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

With the first light of the white sun, a half-grown megatherium cub rose slowly from its crouch at the mouth of the cave and stretched luxuriously, showing a full set of saber-like teeth.

From The Thing in the Attic by Blish, James Benjamin

We have pleasure in informing you that it is distantly related to the megatherium, and, since the extinction of the latter, has been very generally used for hack purposes.

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 by Seaman, Owen, Sir

The megatherium grew calmer; its jaws sank to the ground again, and it crunched the hard nuts with its teeth as if they had been grains of corn.

From Tales From J?kai by J?kai, M?r