Taking all the various points of its structure together, they clearly indicate affinities both with the existing Sloths and with the Anteaters, the skull and teeth more resembling those of the former, and the vertebral column and limbs the latter. It is also not difficult to infer the food and habits of this enormous creature. That it was a leaf-eater there can be little doubt; but the greater size and more complex structure of its teeth might have enabled it to crush the smaller branches as well as the leaves and succulent shoots which form the food of the existing Sloths. It is, however, very improbable that it climbed into the branches of the trees like its diminutive congeners, and it is far more likely that it obtained its subsistence by tearing them down with the great hook-like claws of its powerful prehensile fore limbs, being easily enabled to reach them by raising itself up upon the massive tripod formed by the two hind feet, firmly fixed to the ground by the one huge falcate claw, and the stout, muscular tail. The whole conformation of the hinder part of the animal is strongly suggestive of such an action. There can also be little doubt but that all its movements were as slow and deliberate as those of its modern representatives. An idea at one time prevailed that the Megatherium was covered externally with a coat of bony armour like that of the Armadillos; but this originated in dermal plates belonging to the Glyptodon having been accidentally associated with bones of the Megatherium. Similar plates, on a smaller scale, have indeed been found in connection with the skeleton of the Mylodon, but never yet with the Megatherium, which we may therefore imagine with a covering of coarse hair like that of its nearest living allies, the Sloths and Anteaters.