Pliometanastes [SEP] parent taxon
Pliometanastes
Pliometanastes is an extinct genus of giant ground sloths of the family Megalonychidae endemic to North America during the Late Miocene epoch through very early Pliocene epoch (Hemphillian in the NALMA classification). Its fossils have been found in Costa Rica and across the southern United States from California to Florida.
Description.
"Pliometanastes" and "Thinobadistes" were the first of the giant sloths to appear in North America. Both were in North America before the Panamanian Land Bridge formed around 2.5 million years ago. It is then
Taxon in disguise
In bacteriology, a taxon in disguise is a species, genus or higher unit of biological classification whose evolutionary history reveals has evolved from another unit of similar or lower rank, making the parent unit paraphyletic. This happens when rapid evolution makes a new species appear radically different from the ancestral group, so that it is not (initially) recognised as belonging to the parent phylogenetic group, leaving the latter an evolutionary grade.
While the term is from bacteriology, parallel examples are found throughout the tree of