A Ground Sloth in Alaska

Abstract

Childs Frick, honorary curator of the American Museum of Natural History, has kindly permitted me to examine and report upon a phalangeal element of an extinct megalonychid ground sloth from the Quaternary of Alaska. The specimen, No. F.A.M. 30844, a first or proximal phalanx, possibly of the fourth digit, manus, is larger than the corresponding bone in Nothrotherium and represents apparently a species of Megalonyx. Curiously enough, it is the only ground sloth material thus far recorded from the frozen muck of Alaska. This is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that during thirteen seasons of work since 1929 the Childs Frick Expeditions in cooperation with the University of Alaska have conducted intensive paleontological explorations in this northern region. The present specimen, found by Otto Wm. Geist during the field season of 1941, adds another large mammal to the extinct pre-tundra fauna known from Alaska.

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