Cueva del Milodón, Patagonia

A 200-metre cave in Chilean Patagonia that a German explorer, Hermann Eberhard, walked into in 1895 and found a large piece of skin that looked almost fresh. It belonged to a Mylodon, a ground sloth the size of a small bear that died out between about 13,560 and 10,200 years ago, and the cold dry air in here had kept the hide and hair intact. The digs since have turned up Hippidion the extinct horse, Smilodon the sabre-tooth, and Macrauchenia, along with signs of people living here as far back as 6000 BC. PUBLIC natural monument on the End of the World Route, 24 km northwest of Puerto Natales.