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Workers discover ancient sloth fossil in LA

Workmen digging a new train line have had an "amazing discovery" after they unearthed a giant slo...
Newstalk
Newstalk

17.08 3 Jun 2017


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Workers discover ancient sloth...

Workers discover ancient sloth fossil in LA

Newstalk
Newstalk

17.08 3 Jun 2017


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Workmen digging a new train line have had an "amazing discovery" after they unearthed a giant sloth bone in Los Angeles.

The large hip joint is believed to be from a Harlan's Ground Sloth that would have lived between 40,000 and 11,000 years ago.

The ancient mammal's bone was found 16ft below Crenshaw Boulevard - a major LA thoroughfare.

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The animal would have been up to 10ft long and weighed around 1,500lbs (680kg) - the same as a cow.

A spokesman for the city's metro system said: "This is an amazing discovery."

A fragment of ancient bison bone was also discovered in the same sandy clay layer.

Now a hub for the world's entertainment industry, the LA lowland would have been full of sloths, bison, ancient camels, mastodons and mammoths during the late Pleistocene era.

But following a series of ice ages - as the glaciers melted and froze - many large mammals in North America became extinct 10,000 years ago, while humans continued to evolve.

Earlier this year, LA workmen found bones belonging to an ancient camel and a mastodon and mammoth during a dig to extend another train line beneath Wilshire Boulevard, around 15 miles away.

The fossils will soon be transferred, possibly for display at LA's Natural History Museum.


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