L.A. Metro diggers find bones of giant sloth

A digging crew from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of Los Angeles stumbled upon a fossilized hip joint of an ancient giant sloth. The fossil was found in a layer of clay over 15 feet under ground.

via Wikimedia Commons

The remains come from a giant mammal, a Harlan's ground sloth, that lived in the Los Angeles basin over 11,000 years ago.

Giant bison, mastodons and camels are among other large mammals, or megafauna, that lived in North America during the late Pleistocene.

It has long been theorized that an extinction event occurred that wiped out the North American megafauna, such as the giant ground sloth. This find is likely among the last generations of the ground sloth to exist before the mass extinction event occurred.