Scelidodon Sloth Skull Replica

Description

Scelidodon Sloth Skull Replica measures 18.5 x 8 x 6 in. Scelidodon Sloth Skull Replica is museum quality polyurethane cast. 2-part skull (separate cranium and partial jaw). Made in USA. Cast of an original Royal Ontario Museum specimen. Our precise skull can be used as a teaching tool, museum skull exhibit, home decor skull, or office decor skull.

Pleistocene era. The small mylodent Sloth of South America. Part of the lower jaw is missing. Scelidodon is an extinct South American ground sloth. Its remains have been dated to as recently as 9000 B.P.

Scelidodon was one of the last of the ground sloths and was one of the largest scelidotheriids, with S. chiliense reaching up to 4.7 meters.

Its body weight has been estimated at over 1500 kg. Scelidodon was widley distributed in temperate grassland environments and due to its contemporary megatheriines being high browsers, this suggests that Scelidodon was a grazer like its close relative, Scelidotherium.

The first remains of Scelidodon or Scelidodon tarijensis were collected in the 1850s in Tarija Valley, Bolivia and consisted of a skull and mandible (MNHN TAR 1260).

It wasn’t until 1880 that Paul Gervais and Florentino Ameghino described the remains as Scelidotherium tarijarensis. In the same paper, Scelidotherium capellini was described based on a left hemimandible (MNHN PAM 231) with a referred skull (MACN 994), the fossils were found at Toscas del Rio de la Plata in Argentina.

The genus Scelidodon was erected in 1881 with the type species, Scelidodon copei, name by Ameghino. The type specimen (MACN A-1158) of S. copei comes from Ensenadan sediments in Mercedes, Buenos Aires province and consists of a left maxilla. S. tarijarensis and S. capellini were transferred to Scelidodon in 1889 by Ameghino.

S. chiliense was named based on a skull (BMNH M 2819) from the late Pleistocene of Chile by Richard Lydekker in 1886. Since the 19th century, much material of Scelidodon has been found from 5 countries and is one of the most well preserved scelidotheres.

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