
Mega-Tunnels Dug by South American Megafauna - curtis
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2017/03/28/paleoburrows-south-america
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caio1982
For those still curious, a "modern" fruit that we can eat thanks to these mega
diggers: [http://www.kew.org/blogs/archived-blogs/taste-
amazon](http://www.kew.org/blogs/archived-blogs/taste-amazon)

Spoiler: it's delicious, thanks megafauna! :-)

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user982
A more common example: the avocado.

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zafka
Mangos too!

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pvaldes
mmmh... aestivation?

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jessriedel
The wikipedia page on Megatherium, the giant ground sloth, doesn't mention
paleoburrows.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatherium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatherium)

Anyone have an info on whether other experts take this hypothesis seriously?

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curtis
The impression that I got from the article is that we don't know yet, because
the experts have not heard of this before either. It sounds like scientific
study only goes back maybe a decade, it's been largely confined to Brazil, and
the scientists involved are geologists, not paleobiologists. So is it for
real? It sounds both crazy and plausible to me at the same time. I think it's
too soon for us laypeople to draw any conclusions.

I'm reasonably certain this is not an April Fool's joke. Here's an article in
a Brazilian newspaper from 2015 (via Google Translate):
[https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://oglobo.globo.com/sociedade/caverna-
escavada-por-mamiferos-gigantes-descoberta-na-amazonia-17032201&prev=search)

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lostlogin
Thanks - it's hard to be on alert when it's the 2nd here. I hope it isn't a
joke.

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WhitneyLand
When was last time a natural structure this big had not been formally studied?

Paleoburrows do not even have a wikipedia entry. I suspect that's not going to
last long after this article.

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M_Grey
Oh god. I remember hearing some years ago about the ancient ancestors of
guinea pigs... bison-sized, roaming in packs. Looking at the claw-marks,
clearly from a far more enormous sloth, really puts the relatively puny
Guineazilla into perspective.

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bwb
This story on April 1st make me nervous, but looks legit and so amazing.

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tim333
The date on the article is Mar 28th

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heh
Ground Sloths? I think you mean Badgermoles.

Something something secret tunnel.

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pvaldes
I wonder how we could differenciate among old claw and old pick-axe marks.
Both could be very similar.

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pvaldes
There is a simple solution to explore this idea further. Is the hardness of
this rock bigger than keratine or enamel?.

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inversezero
this link is redirecting to a spam advertising page after it finishes loading.
anyone else seeing this?

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ajmurmann
Yes, I tried reading the first sentence twice. Both times I won $1000 and then
have up.

Edit: happened on iPhone

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saltyhiker
Same here, on an iPhone

