Glyptodon

Glyptodon Temporal range: 2.500–0.011 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Fossil specimen at the Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Superorder:	Xenarthra
Order:	Cingulata
Family:	Chlamyphoridae
Subfamily:	†Glyptodontinae
Genus:	†Glyptodon Owen, 1839
Species
G. clavipes Owen, 1839 (type) G. elongatus Burmeister, 1866 G. euphractus Lund, 1839 G. munizi Ameghino, 1881 G. petaliferus Cope, 1888 G. reticulatus Owen, 1845 G. rivapacis Hay, 1923

Glyptodon (from Greek for "grooved or carved tooth" – Greek γλυπτός sculptured + ὀδοντ-, ὀδούς tooth) was a genus of large, armored mammal of the subfamily Glyptodontinae (glyptodonts or glyptodontines) – relatives of armadillos – that lived during the epoch. It was roughly the same size and weight as a Volkswagen Beetle, though flatter in shape. With its rounded, bony shell and squat limbs, it superficially resembled a turtle, and the much earlier dinosaurian ankylosaur – providing an example of the convergent evolution of unrelated lineages into similar forms. In 2016 an analysis of Doedicurus mtDNA found it was, in fact, nested within the modern armadillos as the sister group of a clade consisting of Chlamyphorinae and Tolypeutinae. For this reason, glyptodonts and all armadillos but Dasypus were relocated to a new family, Chlamyphoridae.

Although Darwin is said to have found the first fossils of glyptodontines (the subfamily), the first mention of the genus Glyptodon in Europe was in 1823, from the first edition of Cuvier's "Ossemens Fossiles". The then unnamed Glyptodon was briefly mentioned in a letter from Don Damsio Laranaga. He had found "a femur... It was about seven pounds, and maybe six or eight inches wide", as well as part of a tail. At the time, the discovery was believed to have belonged to Megatherium, a type of giant ground sloth. A man named Sellow found some carapace plates in three-foot deep clay in Uruguay four years later. That discovery only made the professors even more certain that the discoveries were of the Megatherium, since the bones of this prehistoric giant sloth were usually found in similar conditions and Cuvier had said that the genus was loricated.