The Milodón Cave
In a Patagonian cave, an explorer found a piece of fresh-looking hairy skin from a giant sloth. Scientists wondered if one was still alive.
What was reported
In 1895, the German settler and explorer Hermann Eberhard found a large cave near what is now Puerto Natales, in southern Chile. Inside was a piece of thick skin, still covered in coarse hair and studded with small bones, that looked as though it came from a recently living animal.
Scientists identified it as belonging to a mylodon, a giant ground sloth thought to have died out thousands of years earlier. Newspapers suggested the animal might still survive in the Patagonian wilderness, and the British newspaper the Daily Express paid for an expedition to find one.
Explanations offered
The expedition found no living sloth. Radiocarbon dating later showed the skin is around 10,000 years old, kept unusually fresh by the cold, dry conditions in the cave. The site is now a natural monument, with a life-size model of the sloth at its entrance.
- When
- Skin found in 1895
- Where
- Near Puerto Natales, Magallanes, Chile
- Witnesses
- Explorers and scientists
- Status
- Mostly explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.