Definition of ground sloth in US English:

noun

• An extinct terrestrial edentate mammal of the Cenozoic era in America, typically of very large size.

  Order Xenarthra (or Edentata). See megatherium, mylodon

  Example sentences

  • ‘The first North Americans lived side-by-side with elephant-like mammoths and mastodons, giant short-faced bears, sabre-toothed cats, tree-sized ground sloths and heavily armoured glyptodonts.’
  • ‘In North America these included mammoths and mastodon, giant ground sloths, and glyptodonts.’
  • ‘Sabertooth tigers stalked giant ground sloths around the La Brea Tar Pits, and left behind their bones.’
  • ‘We, furthermore, tested extracts from a cave bear from which endogenous bear sequences cannot be amplified and a Pleistocene ground sloth from South America using the same controls.’
  • ‘Inside the caves here, you can virtually smell the dung of prehistoric mammoths and ground sloths.’