Many thousands of years ago, the Sarasota-Manatee area was home to a diverse mix of now-extinct mammals—most notably, saber-tooth cats, mastodons and giant ground sloths called Megatherium, which stood 15 feet tall.

And early last month, a Manatee County Utilities ground crew found evidence of the area’s giant sloths when they uncovered a fossilized claw from a subspecies of Megatherium in a newly dug trench. 

Initially thinking the claw might be a corroded hand tool, the workers began rinsing the item and pulling off debris before realizing they had actually found a fossil. That’s when the crew contacted the Manatee County Department of Natural Resources, which called in the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature. The fossil will be featured as part of the museum’s sloth exhibit.

“We have a diorama and a mural that show what animals would have [lived] in Manatee County towards the end of the Ice Age. Although we already have a ground sloth claw, that one wasn’t found directly within Manatee County,” says Andrew Sandall, the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature’s CEO. “The fact that this one is definitely from here means this ground sloth probably walked over the land the museum is on.”

Sandall says that while we have plenty of definitive evidence that giant sloths were once part of the Florida ecosystem, finding fossilized remains is rare due to our unfriendly high-acidity soil conditions—a less-than-ideal environment for relatively recent fossil formation. 

Now, you may be thinking, “Wait a minute, I find loads of shark teeth on our beaches. Those are fossils. What gives?” 

According to Sandall, marine fossils like megalodon teeth were formed many millions of years ago, when the land that today makes up Florida was still part of the seafloor, versus the more recent Ice Age, when giant sloths and other mega-fauna went extinct.

“The fact that the claw was preserved so well is really special,” Sandall says. “ It's a miracle that survived the way it did.”

Ground sloths, he adds, are thought to have been responsible for spreading avocados throughout the Americas through their feces. 

“The sloth would eat the avocados, move forward to new areas, and then release the seeds, which would grow as the animals inched farther north in their migration,” he says.

Evidence of area sloths aren’t the only fossils on show at the museum, which is also home to an intact mastodon skeleton—also found locally—named Priscilla. She lives in the museum’s Great Hall and Sandall refers to her as the Bishop's unofficial mascot.

And speaking of Florida fauna, we couldn't help but wonder: Is there a chance that our beloved state cryptid, the Swamp Ape, might actually be a misidentified giant sloth that miraculously escaped extinction?

"Well, I would like to say that I very much doubt that, but it could be," Sandall says with a laugh. "I mean, giant ground sloths and humans did overlap, and [the sloths] are kind of the right size. So, while I don't think there is one that is still around, I can’t discount that that could be true."

If you’d like to see this new fossil for yourself, you can visit the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature at 201 10th St. W. in Bradenton.