Giant sloths with wolverine-like claws used to roam America, and humans hunted them
by Doyle Rice
Human footprint inside a sloth track. This composite track is part of a trackway in which the human appears to have stalked the sloth. (Photo: Matthew Bennett, Bournemouth University)
Although it sounds like a grade-B science fiction movie, fossils that our ancestors once hunted and fought giant ground sloths.
For the first time, scientists have uncovered fossilized footprints of ancient humans at the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, a new study reports. And at the same site, those newly discovered human footprints were actually inside footprints of giant ground sloths — tall, fearsome creatures with sharp claws.
Scientists say this is evidence that the humans followed closely behind, or even “stalked” the sloths during the hunt.
“The White Sands trackway — a series of tracks and footprints — shows that someone followed a sloth, purposely stepping in their tracks as they did so,” said study lead author David Bustos, the park naturalist who discovered the trackway 10 years ago.
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