Xenarthrans (Sloths, Anteaters and Armadillos)

This group gathers Mammals subcategory members belonging to the superorder Xenarthra, a group of mammals native to the Americas and named for the extra joints found in their lower spine, which give the back added rigidity and strength, useful to animals that dig, hang or defend themselves rather than run. It spans the sloths, slow moving, almost entirely arboreal leaf eaters found in Central and South American rainforest canopies, the anteaters, toothless insect eaters with a long sticky tongue and powerful digging claws, and the armadillos, the only xenarthrans with a hard, bony armored shell covering the back. Xenarthra is one of the oldest branches of the placental mammal family tree, having split off from every other placental lineage in this subcategory tens of millions of years before most of the other orders here diverged from one another.