Imagine walking into a room and coming face to face . .or rather, face to belly with a ten foot tall sloth.

This towering creature is a new exhibit in San Ramon’s museum and shows what type of beasts roamed the region back in the frigid pleistocene era.

This awesome display may be make-believe but it is based on actual bones found in Piedades Sur of San Ramon and nearby Palmares.

Set in a chilly mountain setting, with full air conditioning so you even feel the cold, it is a history lesson not only of long gone years but of the natural sciences of the present. Some of the bones were discovered in 1934 by botanist Alberto Manuel Brenes and languished in the national museum for 80 years.

Others were found by farmers in a riverbed in Palmares following a flood in 2006.

The exhibit was put together by biologist Liz Brenes and artist Andres Badillo, both of the University of Costa Rica’s San Ramon campus.

It took months of research to find out what life was like for super size critters like eremotherium laurillardii and the rhinoceros-like mixotoxodon larensis.

They, and others of their size, roamed parts of South and Central America, says biologist Brenes, who added that mastodon teeth have also been found throughout the region.

There’s not much known about their diets but she guesses that sloths ate leaves and maybe things like acorns.

They couldn’t climb trees but they could reach branches.

The display not only shows us what wild life once existed in Costa Rica, it is a reminder of what happens with climate change. The glaciers receded, the tropics warmed up and species disappeared.

Making a ten foot high sloth that would fit through the doorway was a challenge for sculptor Badilla.

He started with eight huge blocks of dense styrofoam which he shaped and primed in his home. Outsize braces and screws were installed for joining it all together. Then 500 meters of cabuya, a natural fiber rope were carted home for the hair (about five blocks long) which was untwisted, cut and combed.

Clumps of hair, ranging from one inch long for the face to almost a meter long for the body were stapled to the forms, using up 15,000 staples.

Finally the pieces were trucked to the museum to be assembled into one gigantic sloth.

Badilla’s artist wife, Susana Villalobos added a mural of snow capped mountians and rocky outcroppings, which along with the chilly room temperature, takes you back a couple of milenia.

The scene is worth a trip to San Ramon, about 30 miles west of San Jose on the InterAmerican highway.

Known as the city of poets, the city offers other attractions, including the Jose Figueres Farrar home and cultural center a half block from the museum, across from the side of the church, the museum is open Tuesdays -Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. There is no charge.

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Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.