Scelidotheriidae

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
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

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

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)

Nothrotheriidae

Megatheriidae

Megalonychidae

Bradypodidae (three-toed sloths)

Megatherioidea

  Scelidotheriidae  

Scelidotherium sp.

Scelidodon sp.

Choloepodidae
  (two-toed sloths)  

C. didactylus

C. hoffmanni

  Mylodontidae  

Lestodon armatus

Paramylodon harlani

Mylodon darwinii

Glossotherium robustus    

Mylodontoidea

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

Scelidotheriinae 

Sibyllotherium guenguelianum

Neonematherium flabellatum

Scelidotherium

Proscelidodon gracillimus

Proscelidodon patrius

Proscelidodon rothi

Valgipes bucklandi

Catonyx cuvieri

Catonyx tarijensis

Catonyx chiliense

References

  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. Presslee, S.; Slater, G. J.; Pujos, F.; Forasiepi, A. M.; Fischer, R.; Molloy, K.; Mackie, M.; Olsen, J. V.; Kramarz, A.; Taglioretti, M.; Scaglia, F.; Lezcano, M.; Lanata, J. L.; Southon, J.; Feranec, R.; Bloch, J.; Hajduk, A.; Martin, F. M.; Gismondi, R. S.; Reguero, M.; de Muizon, C.; Greenwood, A.; Chait, B. T.; Penkman, K.; Collins, M.; MacPhee, R.D.E. (2019). "Palaeoproteomics resolves sloth relationships" (PDF). Nature Ecology & Evolution. 3 (7): 1121–1130. doi:10.1038/s41559-019-0909-z. PMID 31171860. S2CID 174813630.
  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

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.