Parocnus serus Miller, 1929:29
Greater Haitian ground sloth
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Synonym/s: “Megalocuus sp.” (lapsus calami) (Miller, 1922)
Megalocnus zile is considered a junior synonym of P. serus by (McAfee & Beery, 2021).
Conservation Status
Extinct
Last record: Late Pleistocene
Distribution
Hispaniola
Biology & Ecology
Hypodigm
Media
References
Alcover, Josep Antoni et al. (1998). Mammal Species of the World: Additional Data on Insular Mammals. American Museum Novitates 3248, 29 pp., 1 table.
Borroto-Páez, Rafael, Mancina, Carlos A., Woods, Charles A. and Kilpatrick, C. William. (2012). Checklist: Updated Checklist of Endemic Terrestrial Mammals of the West Indies, pp. 389-415. In: Borroto-Páez, Rafael, Woods, Charles A. and Sergile, F. E. (eds.). Terrestrial Mammals of the West Indies: Contributions. Gainesville, Florida: Florida Museum of Natural History and Wacahoota Press. 482 pp.
Cooke, Siobhán B., Dávalos, Liliana M., Mychajliw, Alexis M. Turvey, Samuel T. and Upham, Nathan S. (2017). Anthropogenic Extinction Dominates Holocene Declines of West Indian Mammals. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 48: 301-327. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-110316-022754
Dantas, Mário A. T., Campbell, Sean Cody and McDonald, H. Gregory. (2023). Paleoecological inferences about the Late Quaternary giant ground sloths from the Americas. Research Square preprint. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2992768/v1
Gaudin, T. (2004). Phylogenetic relationships among sloths (Mammalia, Xenarthra, Tardigrada): the craniodental evidence. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 140: 255-305.
Lemoine, Rhys Taylor, Buitenwerf, Robert, Faurby, Sören and Svenning, Jens-Christian. (2025). Phylogenetic Evidence Supports the Effect of Traits on Late-Quaternary Megafauna Extinction in the Context of Human Activity. Global Ecology and Biogeography 34(7): e70078. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.70078 [Supporting Information: Data S1]
McAfee, Robert K. and Beery, Sophia M. (2021). Intraspecific variation of Megalonychid sloths from Hispaniola and the taxonomic implications. Historical Biology 33(3): 371-386. [Abstract]
McDonald, H. Gregory. (2023). A Tale of Two Continents (and a Few Islands): Ecology and Distribution of Late Pleistocene Sloths. Land 12(6): 1192. https://doi.org/10.3390/land12061192
Steadman, David W. et al. (2005). Asynchronous extinction of late Quaternary sloths on continents and islands. PNAS 102(33): 11763-11768.
Turvey, Samuel T. (2009). Holocene mammal extinctions, pp. 41-61. In: Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). Holocene Extinctions. Oxford, UK & New York, USA: Oxford University Press. xii + 352 pp.
Turvey, Samuel T. and Fritz, Susanne A. (2011). The ghosts of mammals past: biological and geographical patterns of global mammalian extinction across the Holocene. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 366(1577): 2564-2576. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0020 [Supplementary Information]
Upham, Nathan S. (2017). Past and present of insular Caribbean mammals: understanding Holocene extinctions to inform modern biodiversity conservation. Journal of Mammalogy 98(4): 913-917. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyx079
White, J. L. and MacPhee, R. D. E. (2001). The Sloths of the West Indies: A Systematic and Phylogenetic Review, pp. 201-236. In: Woods, C. A. and Sergile, F. E. Biogeography of the West Indies: Patterns and Perspectives. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press.
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