Jefferson's Ground Sloth
(Megalonyx jeffersonii)
 
Residents of Virginia during the Ice Age, these ground sloths became extinct around 9,000 years ago.  They survive nowhere on earth today.  They may have looked somewhat like bears, but their closest living relatives are tree sloths, armadillos, and anteaters.

Giant sloths were huge, bulky, slow-moving herbivores (plant eaters), eating leaves and twigs of woody plants. They were about 20 feet (6 m) long and weighed roughly 3-4 tons. Although other species of sloths still exist in South America, they are much smaller than the giant sloth, which went extinct about 11,000 years ago.
 
You can learn more about this creature in the Saltville exhibit, located in the Uncovering Virginia gallery, on the museum's main level.  You can also learn more about giant ground sloths and other creatures that existed until the end of the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago, in the special exhibit TUSKS! Ice Age Mammoths & Mastodons, open at the Virginia Museum of Natural History from September 27, 2008 to January 4, 2009.