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Giant Ground Sloth at County Museum
Visitors to the San Bernardino County Museum are now greeted
by the skeleton of a giant ground sloth in the entrance foyer.
The full mount skeleton, shown in an environmental setting, is
an exact replica of the fossil sloth recovered by the Museum’s
Geology Division from Devil Peak Cave near the Nevada border.
The exhibit was unveiled by Dennis Hansberger, San Bernardino
County 3rd District Supervisor.
(Photo sloth2.jpg)
The specimen is a Shasta ground sloth, Nothrotheriops shastensis.
The species was the smallest of the North American sloths, standing
just over three feet at the shoulder, eight feet in length, and
weighing about 1,000 pounds. Ground sloths first arrived in North
America about 9 million years ago and became extinct at the end
of the Ice Age. The Shasta ground sloth roamed North America between
1.8 million and 11,000 years ago: the Devil Peak sloth is about
20,000 years old.
Fossilized dung of the Shasta ground sloth indicates that it
ate plants, browsing on Joshua trees, yuccas, squaw tea, salt
brush, mesquite, and cactus. Its long front claws probably hooked
branches as it ate. The claws would also have been a formidable
defense against predators such as saber tooth cats.
The fossil sloth was excavated by Museum volunteers as part of
a joint effort between the Bureau of Land Management, Las Vegas
District, and the Museum. Although Devil Peak Cave was a comfortable
shelter during the Pleistocene, 20,000 years of erosion left the
entrance perched high on a cliff side in an inaccessible canyon.
Volunteers had to hike, scramble, and construct a series of ladders
to reach the cave entrance. The cave’s interior was filled
with layers of sediment that preserved the sloth and associated
fossil animals. Volunteers had to work lying on their stomachs
to excavate the specimens.
Exact replicas of each fossil bone were made at the Museum and
two complete skeletons were mounted: the second was presented
to the Nevada State Museum. The original fossils are conserved
in environmentally-controlled protective storage. The sloth exhibit
was funded by the County of San Bernardino and the San Bernardino
County Museum Association.
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