The Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History investigated the item further with the help of their paleontology advisor, Wayne Thompson, and various experts. They instantly knew it was something special.
Young kids in Santa Cruz, California, stumbled upon one of the rarest finds in the state’s history: the fossil of a giant sloth.
“The fossil was found last spring by a group of elementary school students, kindergartners and first-graders,” Felicia Van Stolk, the executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History, tells Inside Edition Digital.
“They were out on a field trip playing around in a creek when one of them noticed something that looked like a stick,” she says. “And they're really excited because it's just sort of this mystery object.”
The thrilled kindergartners and first-graders brought the bone back to their classroom and had it there for months. Eventually, one of the parents decided to reach out to the museum to have the item identified.
The Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History investigated the item further with the help of their paleontology advisor, Wayne Thompson, and various experts. They instantly knew it was something special.
It was determined that the fossil originated from a Jefferson's ground sloth. It was the first time that type of animal was discovered in the region.
Jefferson’s ground sloths, or a Megalonyx, not only have a deep history in paleontology but are also tied to the third president of the United States, Van Stolk says.
“One of the very first scientific papers was published by Thomas Jefferson about this sloth, and that's why it's named the Jefferson's ground sloth because Thomas Jefferson wrote a paper about these fossils,” she says. “He even had fossils like ours along with him when he went to accept his vice presidency.”
The fossil the children found is somewhere between 11,000 and 300,000 years old. It roamed the earth when the Santa Cruz region had many ice age animals.
“Humans and giant ground sloths as tall as a grown human were around at the same time,” Van Stolk says. “They went away at the end of the ice age when there's a huge climate change.”
Many think of the cute and slow animal when they hear “sloth,” but Jefferson’s sloths are different.
“Tree sloths that are around today and the ground sloths that are now extinct branched off in their family tree a very, very long time ago, and they kind of went in different directions,” she says. "They were lumbering around on the ground more like bears, eating plants. Versus the slowpokes hanging from trees that we know about today.”
The incredible find will now be on display through the end of May at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.
And the kids who found the fossil can relish knowing they are a part of history, Van Stolk says. “I think some of them will be paleontologists when they grow up because they are super proud and they get how special and significant the find is,” she says. “These young people's eyes were just looking for something magical, and they found it.”
