Thinobadistes

Thinobadistes
Temporal range: Mid Miocene-Early Pliocene (Hemphillian)
10.3–4.9 Ma
T. segnis, Florida Museum of Natural History Fossil Hall at the University of Florida
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Pilosa
Family: †Mylodontidae
Tribe: †Lestodontini
Genus: †Thinobadistes
Hay 1919
Species
  • T. segnis Hay 1919 (type)
  • T. wetzeli Webb 1989

Thinobadistes is an extinct genus of ground sloth of the family Mylodontidae endemic to North America during the Miocene-Pliocene epochs (Hemphillian). It lived from 10.3 to 4.9 mya, existing for approximately 5.4 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 sloths in general first evolved.[2]

  1. ^ PaleoBiology Database: Thinobadistes, basic info
  2. ^ Tetrapod Zoology Archived 2011-03-18 at the Wayback Machine, Scienceblogs, Ten things you didn't know about sloths, by Darien Naish, University of Portsmouth January 23, 2007.