3 megaherbivores roamed South American tropical forests during the late Pleistocene. A megaherbivore is an animal that weighs in the tons. Eremotherium, an extinct species of ground sloth, was the largest, growing to 15 feet long and weighing as much as 12,000 pounds. Notiomastodon platensis and Toxodon platensis were massive animals as well. A new study of these 3 species determined they were browsers that mostly fed in closed canopy jungles and tropical woodlands. The authors of the study analyzed the tooth wear and bone chemistry from numerous specimens of these species to come to this conclusion.
Location of where the specimens used in this study came from. From the below referenced paper.
Graph showing diet of the 3 species discussed in this blog entry. They all thrived in forested environments, but 2 specimens of notiomastodons came from animals that could survive in wooded grasslands as well.
Deviant art AI came up with some good images of mastodons foraging in tropical jungles.
A fairly accurate image of a mastodon from deviant art AI.
The ground sloths I tried to conjure up on deviant art AI looked more like apes, so I ripped off this image from dinosaur wiki.
Deviant art AI also doesn’t know what a toxodon was. When prompted, it produced images of dinosaurs. This image is by Ja Charinos.
The isotopic values of notiomastodons were remarkably similar to those of modern African forest elephants (Loxodon cyclotis), recently determined to be a different species than African savannah elephants. African forest elephants feed upon leaves, fruits, and bark. 2 specimens of notiomastodons were an exception and apparently came from individuals that ate a diet of savannah vegetation, showing it was the kind of animal with the ability to be more of a generalist feeder. Eremotherium and toxodons depended upon plants that grew in forest and woodlands, as far as we know. The results of the study are consistent with conclusions from other studies. Some pollen studies suggest South American rain forests converted to open savannah during the Last Glacial Maximum, but other studies do not. It seems likely grasslands did expand during the coldest stages of Ice Ages in this region, but enough forest refugia remained to support healthy populations of these 3 species of megaherbivores.
Reference:
Asevedo, L.; Semprebon, G., Pansani, T, and J. Paixao
“Feeding Ecology of Pleistocene Herbivorous Mega Mammals from Southern Brazilian Amazon Revealed by Stable Isotopes and Stereoscopic Microwear”
Quaternary Science Review 383 July 1, 2026
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