At the beginning of the 21st century, mysterious underground tunnels located in South America attracted the attention of scientists. This was reported by Zamin.uz.
It was determined that these tunnels were not the result of human activity or natural geological processes, which sparked great interest. Heinrich Frank, a geology professor working in Brazil, discovered an unfamiliar hole near a construction site and decided to study it.
He entered the tunnel and observed a passage approximately 4.5 meters long. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel bore large claw marks.
According to the professor, no geological process can create such a shaped and claw-marked long tunnel. They could only have been dug by strong and large animals.
Research showed that the creatures that dug these tunnels were giant sloths that lived thousands of years ago. They were larger and stronger compared to modern sloths, comparable to African elephants.
In the Rio Grande do Sul region of Brazil, Professor Frank and his colleagues identified more than 1,500 such underground passages. The longest tunnel stretched approximately 600 meters and was wide enough for a human to pass through.
These tunnels are believed to have been dug by several generations of sloths. A 2018 study conducted in the state of Utah, USA, revealed close relationships between humans and sloths.
These relationships were linked to hunting and pursuit processes, with evidence supporting this found. These discoveries add new information to human history and help deepen the understanding of the complexity of nature and the animal kingdom.
