A cursory inspection of the bird, which is not unfrequently brought alive to Europe, its size, and its enormous bill and talons, at once suggest the vast powers of destruction imputed to it, and are enough to account for the stories told of its ravages on mammals - sloths, fawns, peccaries and spidermonkeys.
Unlike sloths, the megatherium has seven cervical vertebrae; and the spines of all the trunk-vertebrae incline backwards.
The coarse and shaggy hair is somewhat like that of the sloths.
As to the Edentata, it is still a matter of uncertainty whether the pangolins (Pholidota) and the ant-bears (Tubulidentata) are rightly referred to an order typically represented by the sloths, anteaters, and armadillos of South and Central America, or whether the two first-named groups have any close relationship with one another.
In its claws alone does it resemble the giant sloths.
