Scelidotheriidae is a family of extinct ground sloths 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 of Mylodontidae by Gaudin in 1995.[1][2] However, recent collagen sequence data indicates the group is less closely related to Mylodon and Lestodon than Choloepus is, and thus it has been elevated back to full family status by Presslee et al. (2019).[3]

Scelidotheriidae
Temporal range: Late Oligocene-Late Pleistocene (Deseadan-Lujanian)
~29–0.009 Ma
Scelidotherium leptocephalum in Paris
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Pilosa
Superfamily: Mylodontoidea
Family: Scelidotheriidae
Ameghino 1889
Genera

Taxonomy

edit

Together with Mylodontidae, and the two-toed sloths, the scelidotheriids form the superfamily 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

edit

The following sloth family phylogenetic tree is based on collagen and mitochondrial DNA sequence data (see Fig. 4 of Presslee et al., 2019).[3]

Folivora

Megalocnidae (Caribbean sloths)

Below is a more detailed cladogram of the Scelidotheriidae, based on the work of Nieto et al. 2020.[4]

References

edit
  1. ^ PaleoBiology Database: Scelidotheriinae, basic info
  2. ^ Gaudin, T. J. (1995-09-14). "The Ear Region of Edentates and the Phylogeny of the Tardigrada (Mammalia, Xenarthra)". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 15 (3): 672–705. Bibcode:1995JVPal..15..672G. doi:10.1080/02724634.1995.10011255. JSTOR 4523658.
  3. ^ a b Presslee, S.; Slater, G. J.; Pujos, F.; Forasiepi, A. M.; Fischer, R.; Molloy, K.; et al. (2019). "Palaeoproteomics resolves sloth relationships" (PDF). Nature Ecology & Evolution. 3 (7): 1121–1130. Bibcode:2019NatEE...3.1121P. doi:10.1038/s41559-019-0909-z. PMID 31171860. S2CID 174813630. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 September 2020. Retrieved 18 September 2020.
  4. ^ Nieto, Gastón L.; Haro, J. Augusto; McDonald, H. Gregory; Miño-Boilini, Ángel R.; Tauber, Adan A.; Krapovickas, Jerónimo M.; Fabianelli, Maximiliano N.; Rosas, Federico M. (2021-06-01). "The Skeleton of the Manus of Scelidotherium (Xenarthra, Mylodontidae) Specimens from the Pleistocene of the Province of Córdoba, Argentina, and its Systematic Implications". Journal of Mammalian Evolution. 28 (2): 221–243. doi:10.1007/s10914-020-09520-x. ISSN 1573-7055. S2CID 226319627.

Further reading

edit
edit