Thinobadistes
| Thinobadistes Temporal range:
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| Thinobadistes segnis, Florida Museum of Natural History Fossil Hall at the University of Florida | |
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| Genus: | †Thinobadistes Hay (1919)
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Thinobadistes is an extinct genus of actively mobile ground sloth of the family Mylodontidae, endemic to North America during the Miocene-Pleistocene epochs. It lived from 13.6—5.3 mya, existing for approximately 8.3 million years.[1]
Thinobadistes and Pliometanastes were the first of the giant sloths to appear in N. America. Both Pliometanastes and Thinobadistes were in N. America before the Panamanian Land Bridge formed around 2.5 million years ago. It is then reasonable to presume that the ancestors of Thinobadistes island-hopped across the Central American Seaway from South America, where ground sloths first evolved.[2]
Taxonomy
Thinobadistes was named by Hay (1919). Its type is Thinobadistes segnis. It was assigned to Mylodontidae by Hay (1919) and Carroll (1988).[3]
Fossil distribution
Fossils have been uncovered from Florida to Texas.[4]
References
- ^ PaleoBiology Database: Thinobadistes, basic info
- ^ Tetrapod Zoology, Scienceblogs, Ten things you didn't know about sloths, by Darien Naish, University of Portsmouth January 23, 2007.
- ^ R. L. Carroll. 1988. Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. W. H. Freeman and Company, New York 1-698
- ^ Paleobiology Database: Thinobadistes, collections.
- Classification of Mammals by Malcolm C. McKenna and Susan K. Bell
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