Two-toed sloth
Choloepus is a genus of xenarthran mammals of Central and South America within the monotypic family Choloepodidae, consisting of two-toed sloths (also less misleadingly known as "two-fingered" sloths).[2][3] The two species of Choloepus (which means "lame foot"[4]), Linnaeus's two-toed sloth (Choloepus didactylus) and Hoffmann's two-toed sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni), were formerly believed on the basis of morphological studies to be the only surviving members of the sloth family Megalonychidae,[5] but have now been shown by molecular results to be closest to extinct ground sloths of the family Mylodontidae.[2][3]
A study of retrovirus and mitochondrial DNA suggests that C. didactylus and C. hoffmani diverged 6 to 7 million years ago.[6] Furthermore, based on cytochrome c oxidase subunit I sequences, a similar divergence date (c. 7 million years ago) between the two populations of C. hofmanni separated by the Andes has been reported.[7]
Both types of sloth tend to occupy the same forests; in most areas, a particular species of the somewhat smaller and generally slower-moving three-toed sloth (Bradypus) and a single species of the two-toed type will jointly predominate. Although similar in overall appearance, the relationship between the two genera is not close. Recent phylogenetic analyses[8] support analysis of morphological data from the 1970s and 1980s, indicating the two genera are not closely related and adapted to their arboreal lifestyles independently. It was unclear from this work from which ground-dwelling sloth taxa the three-toed sloths evolved. Based on the morphological comparisons, it was thought the two-toed sloths nested phylogenetically within one of the divisions of Caribbean sloths.[9] Though data has been collected on over 33 different species of sloths by analyzing bone structures, many of the relationships between clades on a phylogenetic tree were unclear.[10]
Much of the morphological evidence to support the hypothesis of diphyly has been based on the structure of the inner ear.[11] Most morphological studies have concluded that convergent evolution is the mechanism that resulted in today’s two genera of tree sloths. This means that the extant genera evolved analogous traits, such as locomotion methods, size, habitat, and many other traits independently from one another as opposed to from their last common ancestor. This makes tree sloths “one of the most striking examples of convergent evolution known among mammals”.[10]
Recently obtained molecular data from collagen[3] and mitochondrial DNA[2] sequences fall in line with the diphyly (convergent evolution) hypothesis, but have overturned some of the other conclusions obtained from morphology. These investigations consistently place two-toed sloths close to mylodontids and three-toed sloths within Megatherioidea, close to Megalonyx, megatheriids and nothrotheriids. They make the previously recognized family Megalonychidae polyphyletic, with both two-toed sloths and the Caribbean sloths being moved out of that family and away from Megalonyx. Caribbean sloths are placed in a separate, basal branch of the sloth evolutionary tree.[3][2]
The following sloth family phylogenetic tree is based on collagen and mitochondrial DNA sequence data (see Fig. 4 of Presslee et al., 2019).[3]
