The order Pilosa is a group of placental mammals, extant today only in the Americas. It includes the anteaters and sloths.
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.
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 pangolins and the 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
References
