Ancient Armadillos

An extinct group of giant, armoured animals with spiky, club-shaped tails lived millions of years until the last Ice Age,

16:32 23 February 2016

he glyptodonts, an extinct group of giant, armoured animals with spiky, club-shaped tails, are part of the modern armadillos family tree, a 12,000-year-old DNA study has confirmed.

 

The animals roamed South America for millions of years and some of them grew as big as cars.

 

Frederic Delsuc, from the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS) and Montpellier University in France, said: "Glyptodonts should probably be considered a subfamily of gigantic armadillos,"

 

The researchers used computer predictions to reconstruct some likely DNA sequences of armadillo ancestors. The technique allowed them to identify DNA sequences from the ancient target species and eventually, reconstruct the entire mitochondrial genome.

 

The researchers found that some of the animals got progressively bigger over time until they became extinct at the end of Ice Age 10,000 years ago. They are confident that they have resolved the position of the glyptodonts in the tree of life.

 

"Glyptodonts in fact represent an extinct lineage that likely originated 35 million years ago within the armadillo radiation," said co-author Hendrik Poinar from McMaster University, Canada.