Scelidodon

Scelidodon is an extinct genus of South American ground sloths. Its remains have been found in the Yupoí and Uspara Formations of Argentina, the Ulloma, Umala, Ñuapua and Tarija Formations of Bolivia, in Brazil, in Chile and in Peru. The youngest fossils have been dated to as recently as 9000 B.P.

Scelidodon

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
ScelidotheriinaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Mylodontidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Mylodontidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 20 million years on record.

The record covers at least 21 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 29 Mya to 0 Mya.

Oligocene — about 1 of 43 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 0 of 43 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 3 of 43 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 39 of 43 occurrencesPleistocene30–29 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.9–4.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.9–3.9 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.9–3.0 Mya — about 1 occurrence3.0–2.0 Mya — about 4 occurrences2.0–986 ka Mya — about 10 occurrences986 ka–0 Mya — about 27 occurrences21 Mya129 ka29.6 Mya0 Mya

43 occurrences of Scelidodon on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

43 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

14 formations

Tarija — 21.53°S, 64.73°WMiramar — 38.17°S, 57.65°WMiramar — 37.98°S, 57.59°WUlloma — 17.42°S, 68.50°WUmala — 18.97°S, 66.15°WYupoi — 28.60°S, 59.03°WNuapua — 20.87°S, 63.07°WUspara — 32.34°S, 65.01°WFray Bentos — 33.62°S, 58.42°WSalto Ander Egg — 32.07°S, 60.55°WLujan — 38.75°S, 60.60°WToropí — 29.18°S, 56.65°WEnsenada — 34.49°S, 58.48°WTezanos Pinto — 32.07°S, 60.65°WTucuman — 26.73°S, 65.27°W

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The named rock units Scelidodon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 27 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Scelidodon and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Scelidodon and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

237 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 31 sites for Scelidodon, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

22 references

Each of the 43 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 10 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Scelidodon

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Scelidodon was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itScelidotheriinae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ameghino 1881