The living Mylodon of Patagonia
After a strangely fresh ground-sloth skin was found in a cave near Puerto Natales in 1895, Argentine palaeontologist Florentino Ameghino announced in 1898 that a giant sloth, which he named Neomylodon listai, might still be alive.
1898 CE · -51.57, -72.62 · status: explained
The account
Settler Hermann Eberhard found the skin, still with hair, in what is now the Cueva del Milodón. Ameghino linked it to an account by explorer Ramón Lista of a strange shaggy animal seen in Santa Cruz. The British Daily Express funded an expedition in 1900, led by Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard, which crossed Patagonia without finding one. Fragments of the skin ended up in museums around the world.
The sceptical view
Radiocarbon dating showed the cave remains are more than 10,000 years old; the skin survived because the cave is cold and dry. The Mylodon is extinct.