View source for Mylodon

===Overview and origins===
''Mylodon'' was mainly distributed in the southern part of South America. Fossil finds are known from Argentina, Chile, southern Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and southern Brazil.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Brandoni |first1=Diego |last2=Ferrero |first2=Brenda S. |last3=Brunetto |first3=Ernesto |date=September 2010 |title=Mylodon darwini Owen (Xenarthra, Mylodontinae) from the Late Pleistocene of Mesopotamia, Argentina, with remarks on individual variability, paleobiology, paleobiogeography, and paleoenvironment |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2010.501449 |journal=Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology |language=en |volume=30 |issue=5 |pages=1547–1558 |doi=10.1080/02724634.2010.501449 |bibcode=2010JVPal..30.1547B |hdl=11336/79988 |issn=0272-4634|hdl-access=free }}</ref> Thus, the colonized regions include very far southern sites on the island of [[Tierra del Fuego]] as well as most of [[Patagonia]] northward to the [[Pampas]] region. Its northern limit was around 19.6° S, while its southern limit reached the range at about 53° south. The Tres Arroyos site on Tierra del Fuego and the region around Cueva del Milodón in southwestern Patagonia are among the southernmost known records of a sloth representative in the Pleistocene.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=McDonald |first=H. Gregory |date=June 2023 |title=A Tale of Two Continents (and a Few Islands): Ecology and Distribution of Late Pleistocene Sloths |journal=Land |language=en |volume=12 |issue=6 |page=1192 |doi=10.3390/land12061192 |doi-access=free |issn=2073-445X}}</ref><ref name="latorre1998">Claudio Latorre: "Paleontología de mamíferos del alero Tres Arroyos 1, Tierra del Fuego". In: ''Anales del Instituto de la Patagonia''. Volume 26, 1998, pp. 77–90.</ref><ref name="mcdonald2008">H. Gregory McDonald, Gerardo de Iuliis: "Fossil history of sloths". In: Sergio F. Vizcaíno, WJ Loughry (Ed.): ''The Biology of the Xenarthra''. University Press of Florida, 2008, pp. 39–55.</ref> In the Pampa region, the northern limit was found approximately at the Chuí River in the southeastern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul around 30 degrees south latitude. Even more northerly points of discovery, such as Ñuapua in Bolivia, are tangent to the 20th parallel south. Finds reported from Paraguay, however, are considered rather uncertain.<ref name="marshalletal1984">{{cite journal |last1=Marshall |first1=Larry G. |last2=Berta |first2=Annalisa |last3=Hoffster |first3=Robert |last4=Pascual |first4=Rosendo |last5=Reig |first5=Osvaldo A. |last6=Bombin |first6=Miguel |last7=Mones |first7=Alvaro |title=Mammals and stratigraphy: geochronology of the continental mammal-bearing quaternary of South America |journal=Palaeovertebrata |date=1983 |pages=1–76 |url=http://cuevasdelperu.org/publicaciones/peru/1984_Paleovertebra_Marshall.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://cuevasdelperu.org/publicaciones/peru/1984_Paleovertebra_Marshall.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="marshall&sempere1991">{{cite book |first1=Larry G. |last1=Marshall |first2=Thierry |last2=Sempere |chapter=The Eocene to Pleistocene vertebrates of Bolivia and their stratigraphic context: a review |pages=631–652 |chapter-url=https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/pleins_textes_7/b_fdi_57-58/010024180.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/pleins_textes_7/b_fdi_57-58/010024180.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |editor1-last=Suárez Soruco |editor1-first=Ramiro |title=Fósiles y facies de Bolivia. Vol. 1, Vertebrados Vol. 1, Vertebrados |date=1991 |series=Revista Técnica de Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos |volume=12 |issue=3–4 |oclc=954042711 }}</ref><ref name="favottietal2015">{{cite journal |last1=Favotti |first1=Sergio Emmanuel |last2=Ferrero |first2=Brenda Soledad |last3=Brandoni |first3=Diego |title=Primer registro de Mylodon Darwini Owen (xenarthra, tardigrada, mylodontidae) en la formación Arroyo Feliciano (pleistoceno tardío), Entre Ríos, Argentina |journal=Revista Brasileira de Paleontologia |date=December 2015 |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=547–554 |doi=10.4072/rbp.2015.3.15 |doi-access=free |hdl=11336/42066 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

The first occurrence of ''Mylodon'' may have been in the Lower Pleistocene, but finds are rather rare.<ref name="scillatoyaneetal1995">{{cite book |first1=Gustavo J. |last1=Scillato-Yané |first2=Alfredo A. |last2=Carlini |first3=Sergio F. |last3=Vizcaíno |first4=Edgardo Ortiz |last4=Jaureguizar |chapter=Los Xenartros |pages=183–175 |editor1-last=Alberdi |editor1-first=M. T. |editor2-last=Leone |editor2-first=Gabriello |editor3-last=Tonni |editor3-first=Eduardo P. |title=Evolución biológica y climática de la región pampeana durante los últimos cinco millones de años: un ensayo de correlación con el Mediterráneo Occidental |date=1995 |publisher=Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales |isbn=978-84-00-07558-3 |language=es}}</ref><ref name="carlinietal1999">{{cite book |first1=Alfredo A. |last1=Carlini |first2=Gustavo J. |last2=Scillato-Yané |chapter=Evolution of Quaternary Xenarthrans (Mammalia) of Argentina |editor1-first=Jorge |editor1-last=Rabassa |editor2-first=Mónica |editor2-last=Salemme |title=Quaternary of South America and Antarctic Peninsula |location=Rotterdam |year=1999 |pages=149–175 }}</ref> During this period, the possibly closely related form ''[[Archaeomylodon]]'' also occurred in the Pampas region, whose foremost canine teeth of the upper dentition were greatly reduced in size, but not yet completely reduced.<ref name="brambillaetal2018">{{cite journal |last1=Brambilla |first1=Luciano |last2=Ibarra |first2=Damián Alberto |title=Archaeomylodon sampedrinensis, gen. et sp. nov., a new mylodontine from the middle Pleistocene of Pampean Region, Argentina |journal=Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology |date=2 November 2018 |volume=38 |issue=6 |article-number=e1542308 |doi=10.1080/02724634.2018.1542308 |bibcode=2018JVPal..38E2308B |s2cid=91874640 }}</ref> Among the early and more northerly finds of ''Mylodon'' is, for example, a skull from the El Palmar Formation in the Argentine province of Entre Ríos, which dates to the end of the last warm period about 80,000 years ago.<ref name="brandonietal2010"/> Also from the northern distribution areas two partial skeletons are worth mentioning, one of which was found at the Río Anisacate in the Argentine province of Córdoba and the other in Arroyo Quequén Salado near Oriente in the Argentine province of Buenos Aires. Mainly in the Pampas, there was an overlap in the occurrence of ''Mylodon'' with the two other major mylodontid sloth representatives ''[[Glossotherium]]'' and ''[[Lestodon]]'' during the Upper Pleistocene. However, actual co-occurrence is rarely attested. These include the important archaeological site of Paso Otero in Buenos Aires Province, the locality of Arroyo de Vizcaíno in southern Uruguay, and the Chuí River.<ref name="farinaetal2014">{{cite journal |last1=Fariña |first1=Richard A. |last2=Tambusso |first2=P. Sebastián |last3=Varela |first3=Luciano |last4=Czerwonogora |first4=Ada |last5=Di Giacomo |first5=Mariana |last6=Musso |first6=Marcos |last7=Bracco |first7=Roberto |last8=Gascue |first8=Andrés |title=Arroyo del Vizcaíno, Uruguay: a fossil-rich 30-ka-old megafaunal locality with cut-marked bones |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |date=7 January 2014 |volume=281 |issue=1774 |article-number=20132211 |doi=10.1098/rspb.2013.2211 |pmid=24258717 |pmc=3843831 }}</ref>