Scelidotheriidae is a family of extinct
ground sloth
Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. The term is used to refer to all extinct sloths because of the large size of the earliest forms discovered, compared to existing tree sloths. The Caribbe ...
s within the order
Pilosa, suborder
Folivora and superfamily
Mylodontoidea, related to the other extinct mylodontoid family,
Mylodontidae, as well as to the living
two-toed sloth family
Choloepodidae. The only other extant family of the suborder Folivora is the distantly related
Bradypodidae. Erected as the family Scelidotheriidae by
Ameghino in 1889, the taxon was demoted to a subfamily by Gaudin in 1995.
However, recent collagen sequence data indicates the group is less closely related to ''
Mylodon'' and ''
Lestodon
''Lestodon'' is an extinct genus of megafaunal ground sloth from South America during the Pliocene to Pleistocene periods. Its fossil remains have been found in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Brazil. Measuring approximatel ...
'' than ''
Choloepus'' is, and thus it has been elevated back to full family status by Presslee ''et al.'' (2019).
Taxonomy
Together with Mylodontidae, and the two-toed sloths, the scelidotheriids form the
superfamily
SUPERFAMILY is a database and search platform of structural and functional annotation for all proteins and genomes. It classifies amino acid sequences into known structural domains, especially into SCOP superfamilies. Domains are functional, str ...
Mylodontoidea. ''
Chubutherium'' is an ancestral and very
plesiomorphic member of this family and does not belong to the main group of closely related genera.
Phylogeny
The following sloth family phylogenetic tree is based on collagen and mitochondrial DNA sequence data (see Fig. 4 of Presslee ''et al''., 2019).
Below is a more detailed cladogram of the Scelidotheriidae, based on the work of Nieto ''et al.'' 2020.
References
Further reading
* (1796): Notice sur le squellette d'une très grande espèce de quadrupède inconnue jusqu'à présent, trouvé au Paraquay, et déposé au cabinet d'histoire naturelle de Madrid. ''Magasin encyopédique, ou Journal des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts'' (1): 303-310; (2): 227-228.
*
* (1993)
Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center - Jefferson's Ground Sloth Retrieved 2008-JAN-24.
* (2008)
''Cueva del Milodon'', Megalithic Portal Retrieved 2008-APR-13
*
*
* (1999): ''Walker's Mammals of the World'' (Vol. 2). Johns Hopkins University Press, London.
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External links
Sloth World: An Online Sloth Bibliography*
ttp://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/sloth.htm Have some ground sloths survived in Argentina?Ground sloths in generalWestern Center for Archaeology and PaleontologyHemet, CA
{{Taxonbar, from=Q7430688
Prehistoric sloths
Prehistoric mammal families
Oligocene xenarthrans
Miocene xenarthrans
Pliocene xenarthrans
Pleistocene xenarthrans
Chattian first appearances
Holocene extinctions
Paleogene mammals of South America
Neogene mammals of South America
Pleistocene mammals of South America
Fossil taxa described in 1890
Taxa named by Florentino Ameghino