Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A genus of gigantic extinct sloths from the Pleistocene, having teeth more or less cylindrical and in structure resembling those of the extant sloths.
  • noun [lowercase] An animal of this genus.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Paleon.) An extinct genus of large slothlike American edentates, allied to Megatherium.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun zoology Any of the extinct genus Mylodon of giant ground sloths of Patagonia.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun large (bear-sized) extinct edentate mammal of the Pleistocene in South America

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the genus name.

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Examples

  • The glyptodon has if anything replaced the mylodon in my affections—there are about 6 whole ones in the Museum of La Plata—an enormous armadillo up to 9-10 feet long, each scale of its armour looking like a Japanese chrysthanthemum.

    The News From Everywhere David Mason 2011

  • The skin looked so fresh the animal was thought to have recently died, but it turned out to be the 10,000-year-old remnants of a mylodon, an extinct 10-foot-tall sloth.

    So Far, So Good Sara Clemence 2012

  • "In Patagonia" 1977 begins in his grandmother's dining room with a cabinet containing among its treasures a dried piece of mylodon skin sent by a cousin, "Charley Milward the Sailor."

    The News From Everywhere David Mason 2011

  • The discovery gave rise to much fanciful conjecture; it was even said that the mylodon had been domesticated and kept tame in the caves; but Doctor Moreno laughed at the supposition and said that it lacked any foundation in fact.

    VIII. Primeval Man; and the Horse, the Lion, and the Elephant 1916

  • Among the species whose bones were found were the macrauchenia, tiger, horse, and mylodon.

    VIII. Primeval Man; and the Horse, the Lion, and the Elephant 1916

  • The most plentiful of these California ground-sloths, the mylodon, was about the size of a rhinoceros; an unwieldy, slow-moving creature, feeding on plants, and in appearance utterly unlike anything now living.

    VIII. Primeval Man; and the Horse, the Lion, and the Elephant 1916

  • Of the mylodon Doctor Moreno found not only comparatively fresh bones, with bits of sinew, but dried dung—almost as large as that of an elephant—and some big pieces of skin.

    VIII. Primeval Man; and the Horse, the Lion, and the Elephant 1916

  • At any rate, with this example before us, we need not wonder overmuch at the ability of megatherium and mylodon to hold their own in the presence of the sabretooth.

    VIII. Primeval Man; and the Horse, the Lion, and the Elephant 1916

  • The edentates not only included various ground-sloths, among them the megatherium, which was the size of an elephant, and the somewhat smaller mylodon, but also creatures as fantastic as those of a nightmare.

    VIII. Primeval Man; and the Horse, the Lion, and the Elephant 1916

  • It was he who made the extraordinary discovery in a Patagonian cave of the still fresh fragments of skin and other remains of the mylodon, the aberrant horse known as the onohipidium, the huge South American tiger, and the macrauchenia, all of them extinct animals.

    I. The Start 1914

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