In a clip from the recent BBC program Museum of Life, visitors to London's Natural History Museum try to identify what kind of animal Megatherium was. Paleo fans will know it as one of the largest ground sloths to have ever lived (as well as one of the first to be described), but if I didn't know that and had no background in paleo, I might think it was a dinosaur, too!
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I don't think that anyone with even a modicum of anatomical or biological knowledge would mistake Megatherium for a dinosaur. It's so obviously a mammal that most anyone ought to recognize it as such, altho perhaps not recognize it as a xenarthran. I reckon that many folks might think it is some sort of giant bear.
Modicum is right. I just showed my son (aged 10) a still image from the video above and asked, "What's that?"
He glanced at it briefly, said, "Giant sloth. I love those things," and went back to dismembering lego on the Wii.
When Charles Darwin excavated a Megatherium at Punta Alta near Bahia Blanca during the Beagle voyage, he originally thought it to be 'allied to the Rhinoceros':
http://blog.friendsofdarwin.com/2007/09/20070923/
Here are some other images of the Natural History Museum's Megatherium - one a marvellous old etching, the other a photo taken by yours truly:
http://blog.friendsofdarwin.com/2009/07/20090722/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gruts/3301286328/
50 points for the kid who said 'giant koala' for recognising mammalian herbivore.