Cingulata, part of the superorder
Xenarthra, is an
order of
armored New World placental mammals.
Dasypodids, the armadillos, are the only surviving
family in the order. Two additional families of cingulates much larger than armadillos (maximum body mass of in the case of the
giant armadillo) existed until recently:
pampatheres, which reached weights of up to and
glyptodonts, which attained masses of or more. The order originated in
South America during the
Paleocene epoch, and due to the continent's former isolation remained confined to it during most of the
Cenozoic. However, the formation of a
land bridge allowed members of all three families to migrate to southern North America during the
Pliocene or early
Pleistocene as part of the
Great American Interchange. After surviving for tens of millions of years, both of the larger families apparently died out during the
Quaternary extinction event at the beginning of the
Holocene, along with much of the rest of the regional
megafauna, shortly after the colonization of the Americas by
Paleo-Indians.