WOW! Mass grave of at least 22 ice age giant ground sloths discovered on southwest coast of Ecuador gizmodo.com/mass-grave-of-…
“Many of the bones were disarticulated and had the type of gouges to suggest trampling by other creatures after they had died. Something catastrophic caused 22 giant ground sloths—many the size of modern elephants—to perish at the same time and in the same place”
“Fifteen of the giant ground sloths were adults; the rest were subadults and juveniles, a couple of them so tiny that they might have been newborns or even fetuses.”
“The remains of these giant ground sloths—as well as those of an ancient horse, deer, pampathere, and gomphothere—were found in the Santa Elena Peninsula in Ecuador.”
Here’s the published paper: “A monodominant late-Pleistocene megafauna locality from Santa Elena, Ecuador: Insight on the biology and behavior of giant ground sloths” sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
“In this paper, we investigate the development of the late-Pleistocene locality Tanque Loma on the southwest coast of Ecuador, which preserves remains of at least 22 individuals of the giant ground sloth, Eremotherium laurillardi in asphaltic sediments.”
“Multiple lines of evidence suggest that these sloths may have congregated and died in a mass mortality event in a marshy riparian habitat.”
Such evidence includes:
(1) a dense, laterally-extensive, bonebed-style accumulation
(2) a multigenerational age structure with adult and large juvenile individuals well-represented
(1) a dense, laterally-extensive, bonebed-style accumulation
(2) a multigenerational age structure with adult and large juvenile individuals well-represented
(3) sediments suggestive of a low-energy anoxic aquatic environment; and
(4) the presence of abundant plant material consistent with digested fodder representing coprolites or gut contents of E. laurillardi.
(4) the presence of abundant plant material consistent with digested fodder representing coprolites or gut contents of E. laurillardi.
“Taking observations from modern megafaunal ecosystems as an analogue, we suggest that this death event could have resulted from drought and/or disease stemming from the contamination of the wallow, paralleling situations observed among hippopotamus populations.....”
“... we suggest that this death event could have resulted from drought and/or disease stemming from the contamination of the wallow, paralleling situations observed among hippopotamus populations in watering holes on the present-day African savannah.”
