On looking at the model so skilfully set up at South Kensington, and especially at the front part of the skull, it will be seen that the snout and lips must have been somewhat elongated, possibly into a slight proboscis like that of the tapir. The specimens of the lower jaw in the wall-case close by show that it was much prolonged and grooved. This fact must be interpreted to mean that the creature possessed a long and powerful tongue, aided by which it could, like the giraffe, strip off the small branches of the trees which it had broken or bent down within its reach.
A bony shield (or carapace) of a great armadillo was found with one of the specimens described by Mr. Clift, and Buckland and others thought it belonged to the Megatherium; but Owen afterwards showed, by most clear and convincing reasoning from the skeleton, that the Megatherium could not have been protected as armadillos are, by such a shield (see [p. 190]).
GREAT GROUND-SLOTH OF SOUTH AMERICA, MEGATHERIUM AMERICANUM.
Length 18 feet.
And now we come to the question how it obtained its food. The idea of digging round trees with its claws in order to uproot them, must be partly, if not entirely, given up; for Professor Owen has proved, by a masterly piece of reasoning, that this cumbrous creature, instead of climbing up trees as modern sloths do, actually pulled down the tree bodily, or broke it short off above the ground by a tour de force, and, in order to do so, sat up on its huge haunches and tail as on a tripod, while it grasped the trunk in its long powerful arms! Marvellous as this may seem, it can be shown that every detail in its skeleton agrees with the idea. Of course there would be limits to possibilities in this direction, and the larger trees of the period must have been proof against any such Samson-like attempts on the part of the Megatherium; but when the trunk was too big, doubtless it pulled down some of the lower branches. [Plate XVIII.] is a restoration, by our artist, of the South Kensington skeleton.
Speaking of the extinct sloths of South America, Mr. Darwin thus describes Professor Owen’s remarkable discovery: "The habits of these Megatheroid animals were a complete puzzle to naturalists until Professor Owen solved the problem with remarkable ingenuity. Their teeth indicate by their simple structure that these animals ... lived on vegetable food, and probably on the leaves and small twigs of trees; their ponderous forms and great strong curved claws seem so little adapted for locomotion, that some eminent naturalists believed that, like sloths, to which they are intimately related, they subsisted by climbing, back downwards, on trees, and feeding on the leaves. It was a bold, not to say preposterous, idea to conceive even antediluvian trees with branches strong enough to bear animals as large as elephants. Professor Owen, with far more probability, believes that, instead of climbing on trees, they pulled the branches down to them, and tore up the smaller ones by the roots, and so fed on the leaves. The colossal breadth and weight of their hinder quarters, which can hardly be imagined without having been seen, become, on this view, of obvious service instead of being an encumbrance; their apparent clumsiness disappears. With their great tails and huge heels firmly fixed like a tripod in the ground, they could freely exert the full force of their most powerful arms and great claws."[52]
[52] Journal of Researches.
To this we may add Dean Buckland’s description,[53] “His entire frame was an apparatus of colossal mechanism, adapted exactly to the work it had to do; strong and ponderous in proportion as this work was heavy, and calculated to be the vehicle of life and enjoyment to a gigantic race of quadrupeds, which, though they have ceased to be counted among the living inhabitants of our planet, have, in their fossil bones, left behind them imperishable monuments of the consummate skill with which they were constructed. Each limb and fragment of a limb form coordinate parts of a well-adjusted and perfect whole.”