It may be asked in ridicule whether I suppose that the megatherium and other allied huge monsters, which formerly lived in South America, have left behind them the sloth, armadillo, and anteater, as their degenerate descendants.
This cannot for an instant be admitted.
These huge animals have become wholly extinct, and have left no progeny.
But in the caves of Brazil there are many extinct species which are closely allied in size and in all other characters to the species still living in South America; and some of these fossils may have been the actual progenitors of the living species.