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Description
11,000 years ago during the late Pleistocene near Cueva del Milodón, Chile, a young human woman (Homo sapiens) separated from her clan tries to find shelter for the night, and enters a cave in the ground with a torch in hand, in hopes of spending the night there. After entering though, she hears a low growl and turns around to find a a South American giant jaguar (Panthera onca mesembrina) has walked in the cave soon after she did, and is now blocking the exit. The woman tries swaying her torch at the jaguar, hoping to scare it off, whilst also slowly backing further into the cave. What she doesn't realize is that another large animal was sleeping deeper inside, and awakened by the commotion, a Darwin's ground sloth (Mylodon darwini) heads on to confront the human and jaguar in its home, much to the shock of the woman when she backs up into the ground sloth. All the while, many giant vampire bats (Desmodus draculae) bite at and drink the blood of the large mammals.

Drawing made for International Sloth Day (October 20) and also decided to kinda make it fit with the spooky vibe of the Halloween month of Spooktober. Cueva del Milodón is a natural monument in southern Chile, and is most famous for the Milodón Cave, a 200-meter long cave in which remains of animals and humans dating to the late Pleistocene epoch have been found. The site is named after the Darwin's ground sloth, Mylodon darwini, the remains of which have been found in the cave, and it is believed the animal may have sheltered in caves like this one or possibly even dig and expand caves and tunnels to form home burrows. Some other giant tunnels in South America are believed to have been excavated by ground sloths, but it's uncertain exactly which species were burrowers. Mylodon is one of the best-known ground sloths, as Cueva del Milodón has yielded more than just bones but even faeces, skin and fur of the animal, allowing us to know its dietary habits and even that its fur color ranged from yellowish to reddish-brown. At 3 to 4 meters long, the Darwin's ground sloth was a large herbivore that could well defend itself from predators with its large hand claws, and there is isotope evidence to suggest it occasionally ate meat as well (though in all likelihood this would only form a small part of its diet and probably was scavenged).

And Mylodon would have had predators to defend itself against. Also known from Cueva del Milodón are remains of jaguars, and while these would be the same species as living jaguars, they are believed to be a now-extinct subspecies known as Panthera onca mesembrina, and Cueva del Milodón is the southernmost known place to have ever had wild jaguars. This extinct subspecies was far larger than extant jaguars, comparable perhaps in size to the extinct American lion (Panthera atrox) and Smilodon populator. Cave paintings and preserved skin suggests these mega-jaguars may have been more reddish than living jaguars. And we do not simply speculate that the mega jaguar may have eaten Mylodon simply because they are from the same site, some remains of the ground sloth actually show bite marks matching the mega jaguar. Perhaps the huge cats even entered caves and burrows to hunt the sloths, in a kinda similar dynamic to the cave bears and cave lions of Pleistocene Europe.

Whilst the Darwin's ground sloth and these mega jaguars are now extinct and we can't see them alive, these animals may have encountered humans at some point. Human remains and tools have been found at Cueva del Milodón, as well as fire-fracrured rock, showing that at some time in the Pleistocene there were early native American people living in the area and maybe using fire to protect themselves from the cold and the dangerous animals. Judging from the existence of cave paintings of P. o. mesembrina in Argentina, there were indeed humans who saw the mega jaguar, and perhaps even some who fell prey to it. I'm not too good with anthropology so I'm not very sure my depiction of a woman from late Pleistocene Patagonia is accurate here, especially in the clothing. I am however quite sure people from this time and place would wear more than just one fucking loincloth since Patagonia is kinda cold now, let alone during an ice age. The indigenous Tehuelche people who lived around Southern Patagonia in more recent times also wore long robes and their ancestors believed to have lived around the area since the late Pleistocene, and while the clothing probably evolved over thousands of years, I suppose it'd be reasonable to depict a Cueva del Milodón resident wearing vaguely similar clothing? Feel free to correct me if you know better.

Also I included a bunch of giant vampire bats because it seemed to fit with the general spooky energy I sorta tried for. An extinct species of vampire bat, Desmodus draculae may have had a wingspan of half a meter, far larger than extant vampire bats, and would've drank mammal blood like its extant kin. Whilst not known from Cueva del Milodón, it was quite widespread throughout South America, and some remains from neighboring Argentina have been found inside tunnels dug by mylodontid sloths, suggesting it may have lived in these burrows and drank blood from the sloths that dug them, and thus it seemed reasonable to speculate it may have also lived near and around the Milodón Cave. It may have specialized in feeding on blood of Pleistocene megafauna and gone extinct because said megafauna was mostly wiped out, though some Argentine remains may suggest the animal survived all the way to around 1650 AD. Who knows, maybe it occasionally also drank from humans.

Description
11,000 years ago during the late Pleistocene near Cueva del Milodón, Chile, a young human woman (Homo sapiens) separated from her clan tries to find shelter for the night, and enters a cave in the ground with a torch in hand, in hopes of spending the night there. After entering though, she hears a low growl and turns around to find a a South American giant jaguar (Panthera onca mesembrina) has walked in the cave soon after she did, and is now blocking the exit. The woman tries swaying her torch at the jaguar, hoping to scare it off, whilst also slowly backing further into the cave. What she doesn't realize is that another large animal was sleeping deeper inside, and awakened by the commotion, a Darwin's ground sloth (Mylodon darwini) heads on to confront the human and jaguar in its home, much to the shock of the woman when she backs up into the ground sloth. All the while, many giant vampire bats (Desmodus draculae) bite at and drink the blood of the large mammals.

Drawing made for International Sloth Day (October 20) and also decided to kinda make it fit with the spooky vibe of the Halloween month of Spooktober. Cueva del Milodón is a natural monument in southern Chile, and is most famous for the Milodón Cave, a 200-meter long cave in which remains of animals and humans dating to the late Pleistocene epoch have been found. The site is named after the Darwin's ground sloth, Mylodon darwini, the remains of which have been found in the cave, and it is believed the animal may have sheltered in caves like this one or possibly even dig and expand caves and tunnels to form home burrows. Some other giant tunnels in South America are believed to have been excavated by ground sloths, but it's uncertain exactly which species were burrowers. Mylodon is one of the best-known ground sloths, as Cueva del Milodón has yielded more than just bones but even faeces, skin and fur of the animal, allowing us to know its dietary habits and even that its fur color ranged from yellowish to reddish-brown. At 3 to 4 meters long, the Darwin's ground sloth was a large herbivore that could well defend itself from predators with its large hand claws, and there is isotope evidence to suggest it occasionally ate meat as well (though in all likelihood this would only form a small part of its diet and probably was scavenged).

And Mylodon would have had predators to defend itself against. Also known from Cueva del Milodón are remains of jaguars, and while these would be the same species as living jaguars, they are believed to be a now-extinct subspecies known as Panthera onca mesembrina, and Cueva del Milodón is the southernmost known place to have ever had wild jaguars. This extinct subspecies was far larger than extant jaguars, comparable perhaps in size to the extinct American lion (Panthera atrox) and Smilodon populator. Cave paintings and preserved skin suggests these mega-jaguars may have been more reddish than living jaguars. And we do not simply speculate that the mega jaguar may have eaten Mylodon simply because they are from the same site, some remains of the ground sloth actually show bite marks matching the mega jaguar. Perhaps the huge cats even entered caves and burrows to hunt the sloths, in a kinda similar dynamic to the cave bears and cave lions of Pleistocene Europe.

Whilst the Darwin's ground sloth and these mega jaguars are now extinct and we can't see them alive, these animals may have encountered humans at some point. Human remains and tools have been found at Cueva del Milodón, as well as fire-fracrured rock, showing that at some time in the Pleistocene there were early native American people living in the area and maybe using fire to protect themselves from the cold and the dangerous animals. Judging from the existence of cave paintings of P. o. mesembrina in Argentina, there were indeed humans who saw the mega jaguar, and perhaps even some who fell prey to it. I'm not too good with anthropology so I'm not very sure my depiction of a woman from late Pleistocene Patagonia is accurate here, especially in the clothing. I am however quite sure people from this time and place would wear more than just one fucking loincloth since Patagonia is kinda cold now, let alone during an ice age. The indigenous Tehuelche people who lived around Southern Patagonia in more recent times also wore long robes and their ancestors believed to have lived around the area since the late Pleistocene, and while the clothing probably evolved over thousands of years, I suppose it'd be reasonable to depict a Cueva del Milodón resident wearing vaguely similar clothing? Feel free to correct me if you know better.

Also I included a bunch of giant vampire bats because it seemed to fit with the general spooky energy I sorta tried for. An extinct species of vampire bat, Desmodus draculae may have had a wingspan of half a meter, far larger than extant vampire bats, and would've drank mammal blood like its extant kin. Whilst not known from Cueva del Milodón, it was quite widespread throughout South America, and some remains from neighboring Argentina have been found inside tunnels dug by mylodontid sloths, suggesting it may have lived in these burrows and drank blood from the sloths that dug them, and thus it seemed reasonable to speculate it may have also lived near and around the Milodón Cave. It may have specialized in feeding on blood of Pleistocene megafauna and gone extinct because said megafauna was mostly wiped out, though some Argentine remains may suggest the animal survived all the way to around 1650 AD. Who knows, maybe it occasionally also drank from humans.