How to Use ground sloth in a Sentence

ground sloth

noun
  • Tracks of mammoths, giant ground sloth, dire wolves and birds are all present at the site as well.
    Katie Hunt, CNN, 23 Sep. 2021
  • In this case, the analysis revealed the giant ground sloth ate meat as well as plants.
    Ashley Strickland, CNN, 8 Nov. 2021
  • Smilodon, a saber-toothed cat around the size of today’s African lion, skulked across the grasslands in search of ground sloths and mammoths.
    Jason G. Goldman, Scientific American, 20 Apr. 2018
  • Mammoths and a giant ground sloth crossed the tracks in the travelers’ wake, trampling some of the footprints.
    Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 23 Oct. 2020
  • That might sound strange, given the lack of enormous dinosaurs or giant ground sloths trundling around.
    Brian Switek, Smithsonian, 27 June 2018
  • Made of plastic resin, the new 8-foot-tall ground sloth skeleton with an outstretched set of claws dominates the center's floor space.
    Chris Mayhew, Cincinnati.com, 8 Sep. 2017
  • The largest burrows, however, were likely made by giant ground sloths, extinct cousins of modern sloths that could grow to more than 1,700 pounds.
    National Geographic, 7 May 2018
  • Extinct megafauna like the mammoth and ground sloth weren’t just hapless prey or passive victims of climate change.
    Jacob Mikanowski, The Atlantic, 19 Dec. 2017
  • Joshua trees were once dispersed across landscapes with help from elephant-sized giant ground sloths, a finding based on the abundance of seeds found in fossilized dung.
    Los Angeles Times, 15 Oct. 2019
  • Animals found in the Bone Dome include a giant bear, a 10-foot ground sloth, armadillos big enough to ride, and Ice Age horses that are now extinct.
    Dennis Pillion | Dpillion@al.com, al, 14 Dec. 2021
  • Their tracks are preserved in the alkali flats of the valley floor—mammoth, dire wolf, saber-toothed cat, North American camel, and giant ground sloth, all dating back to the last ice age.
    Hayden Carpenter, Outside Online, 3 July 2018
  • Joshua trees were once dispersed across landscapes with help from ancient pack rats and elephant-size giant ground sloths, a finding based on the abundance of seeds found in fossilized dung.
    Los Angeles Times, 13 Apr. 2020
  • The clincher, however, may be trackways at the site that include human footprints inside the larger footprints of the giant ground sloths.
    Sid Perkins, Science | AAAS, 25 Apr. 2018
  • Thousands of years ago, the liquid asphalt trapped unsuspecting mammoths, horses, giant ground sloths, camels and bison that roamed the area, thirsty for a drink.
    Ashley Strickland, CNN, 11 Oct. 2019
  • There were massive mammoths three times bigger than modern-day elephants, giant ground sloths up to 20 feet in length, and strange, armadillo-like beasts known as glyptodons that were roughly the size of a VW bus.
    Deborah Netburn, latimes.com, 20 Apr. 2018
  • The loss of large animals like mammoths, mastodons and giant ground sloths has been somewhat evenly spread over all the continents — except Africa, which has lost less than 20% of its large animals.
    Anchorage Daily News, 23 Nov. 2019
  • In the Cenozoic era, prehistoric megafauna like mammoths and giant ground sloths would gobble the fruit whole and then travel long distances, before pooping out the seed and thus dispersing the trees.
    Brian Handwerk, Smithsonian, 28 July 2017
  • All three events are part of a daylong slate of activities to mark the date, including the unveiling of a replica of a giant ground sloth skeleton once housed on the school’s Bloomington campus.
    USA TODAY, 14 Jan. 2020
  • For example, the giant ground sloth identified by Iriarte and his colleagues could in fact be a capybara -- a giant rodent common today across the region.
    Katie Hunt, CNN, 7 Mar. 2022
  • This dry, barren lakebed is known for its fossil riches; the remains of creatures up to 646 thousand years linger in its dusty layers, including birds, fish, mollusk and even mammals like camels, ground sloths and mammoths.
    Maya Wei-Haas, Smithsonian, 26 Feb. 2018
  • No fossil evidence suggests that a giant ground sloth ever composed a symphony or that a Devonian fish split the atom even once.
    New York Times, 25 Apr. 2022
  • These species had evolved over millions of years to have their seeds eaten and spread around by ground sloths, glyptodonts, gomphotheres, (a family of mastodon-like creatures from South America), extinct horses, and other vanished megafauna.
    Jacob Mikanowski, The Atlantic, 19 Dec. 2017
  • Their presence, though, could tell paleontologists more about how giant ground sloths behaved and socialized.
    Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 26 Apr. 2018
  • Plus, some of its displays are wildly outdated — such as the creaky animatronic saber-toothed tiger that is forever devouring a giant ground sloth, its tinny roar on permanent loop.
    Los Angeles Times, 26 Aug. 2019
  • More recently, a team of scientists, whose study was published this year in the journal Science Advances, found fossilized human footprints surrounding circles of giant ground sloth tracks—rare evidence of a Pleistocene hunt.
    Hayden Carpenter, Outside Online, 3 July 2018
  • Although little of archeological interest remained, digs deeper into the cave had revealed remnants of Ice Age animals: a small horse, an ancient tortoise, a now extinct ground sloth.
    Rachel Monroe, The New Yorker, 3 Oct. 2022
  • The key, her team suggests, was dietary flexibility following the disappearance of many of North America’s large prehistoric herbivores, such as giant ground sloths, mammoths, mastodons, and camels.
    John Pickrell, National Geographic, 5 Aug. 2019
  • Alternative options: Other fossils primed for printing include a Priscacara serrata fish, a Stephanoceras juhlei ammonite and a shasta ground sloth’s coprolite (essentially fossilized feces).
    Meilan Solly, Smithsonian, 27 Nov. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ground sloth.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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