Giant ground sloths reaching approximately four metres in height once roamed Trinidad’s grasslands, according to University of the West Indies biologist Ryan Mohammed.
Describing the island’s Ice Age wildlife, Mohammed said its large terrestrial mammals dwarfed those found in the Caribbean today. Among them were giant ground sloths and glyptodons, large armoured relatives of armadillos.
The animals inhabited a landscape that he compared with the present-day Aripo Savannah: grasslands interspersed with marsh forest and swampy areas.
Mohammed, of UWI’s Department of Life Sciences, said the savannah offered people a way to imagine aspects of Trinidad roughly 20,000 years ago. His account presents an Ice Age environment markedly different from familiar images of snowy landscapes and ice-capped mountains.
He also drew comparisons with animals familiar to Trinidadians to convey the scale of the prehistoric fauna. The giant ground sloth, he said, stood far taller than the anteaters found locally today, while glyptodons were substantially larger than modern armadillos.
The fossil record, in his account, reveals a Trinidad once populated by giants in tropical grassland habitats.