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Pilosa

The order Pilosa is a group of placental mammals, extant today only in the Americas. The origins of the order can be traced back as far as the early Tertiary (about 60 million years ago, or only a short time after the end of the dinosaur era). The presence of these animals in North America is explained by the Great American Interchange.

It includes the anteaters, sloths, and Tamanduas. Until recently, Pilosa was lumped with the armadillos in the order Xenarthra. Xenarthra is now generally regarded as a superorder. In the past, these families were classified together with the pangolins and Aardvark as the order Edentata (meaning toothless, because the members do not have front incisor teeth or molars, or have poorly-developed molars). It was subsequently realized that Edentata was polyphyletic—that it contained unrelated families and was thus invalid.

Classification

Order Pilosa

• Suborder Vermilingua
  • Family Myrmecophagidae: anteaters
    • Silky Anteater, Cyclopes didactylus
    • Giant Anteater, Myrmecophaga tridactyla
    • Northern Tamandua, Tamandua mexicana
    • Southern Tamandua, Tamandua tetradactyla
• Suborder Folivora
  • Family Bradypodidae: three-toed sloths
    • Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth, Bradypus variegatus
    • Pale-throated Three-toed Sloth, Bradypus tridactylus
    • Maned Three-toed Sloth, Bradypus torquatus
  • Family Megalonychidae: two-toed sloths
    • Hoffman's Two-toed Sloth, Choloepus hoffmanni
    • Southern Two-toed Sloth, Choloepus didactylus
    • Ground sloth, Megalonyx jeffersonii (extinct)
  • Family Megatheriidae (extinct)
    • Giant ground sloth, Eremotherium laurillardi
  • Family Mylodontidae (extinct)

References

Contents

• Classification
• References