Megatherium was indeed a vegetarian

[suspsy]

As cool as it is to envision the giant of giant ground sloths flipping over glyptodonts to attack their unarmoured bellies or killing Smilodons that refuse to abandon their kills, a team of scientists has determined that it had a vegetarian diet.

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-04-giant-sloth-megatherium-vegetarian.html

Which is not to say that it couldn't kill a Smilodon anyway.

[CrypticPrism]

The fanboys' reign of mammalian terror has ended, bless it! And on my birthday!

[Reptilia]

Always assumed it was an herbivore.

[Ravonium]

Always assumed it was an herbivore.

Same here. I never found it even slightly plausible that Megatherium was a carnivore, considering none of their modern relatives are adapted to hunt flesh.

Which is not to say that it couldn't kill a Smilodon anyway.

Goes to show not all 'awesome' creatures have to eat meat.

[Papi-Anon]

Like Gastornis yet another suspected hunter has been determined to be a vegetarian. This is a good finding. The idea of Megatherium being omnivorous or even carnivorous was something I never considered, which was why the representation on WWB confused me.

[Lanthanotus]

Now, that's not a surprise, nevertheless thanks for linking.

It should be noted though, that even "true" vegetarians (as deer, hippos and others) occasionally feed on flesh if they ran over a carcass or such, after all such is rich in precious minerals, proteins and other nutrients...

[suspsy]

Now, that's not a surprise, nevertheless thanks for linking.

It should be noted though, that even "true" vegetarians (as deer, hippos and others) occasionally feed on flesh if they ran over a carcass or such, after all such is rich in precious minerals, proteins and other nutrients...

I don't think it's impossible that Megatherium could have scavenged on carcasses, but I think it was the rare occasion rather than the norm.

[Lanthanotus]

[...]

I don't think it's impossible that Megatherium could have scavenged on carcasses, but I think it was the rare occasion rather than the norm.

Indeed, most likely nothing that would cause serious traces in the isotope composition of bones or such.

[soft tissue]

megatheriids still could've eaten meat as supplements, ala bovids and deer eating birds, which would be a feeding behaviour infrequent enough as to not affect isotopic values.