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Brand new genetic analysis of the glyptodont, a large mammal that went extinct 10,000 yeras ago during the last ice age, has confirmed that it is closely related to the modern-day armadillo.

Scientists have always suspected the animal was related to the armadillo based on its giant, club-like tail, enormous size and bony makeup. But the connection could not be confirmed until now.

"The data sheds light on the familial relations of an enigmatic creature that has fascinated many but was always shrouded in mystery," says lead researcher and evolutionary geneticist Hendrik Poinar. "Was the glyptodont a gigantic armadillo or weird off-shoot with a fused bony exoskeleton?"

The Glyptodont’s characterization within the larger mammal group Xenarthra is still unresolved. Xenarthra is home to anteaters, tree sloths, now-extinct ground sloths and pampatheres, as well as armadillos.

While the reasons for the animal’s extinction still remains unresolved, the findings show a deep connection between the Glyptodont and the armadillo family.

“Glyptodonts, in fact, represent an extinct lineage that likely originated about 35 million years ago within the armadillo ,” added Poinar.

The study was conducted by McMaster University, the Université de Montpellier in France, Massey University in New Zealand and the American Museum of Natural History.

Researchers painstakingly extracted genetic material from a fossil of the Doedicurus—one of the largest known Glytodonts—found in Argentina. Glytodonts’ average size was that of a small car.

By extracting, isolating and sequencing a complete and unfettered genome of the extinct animal, researchers were able to compare it directly to the living armadillo, confirming the relationship.

The confirmation at the same time proved wrong an older theory about a divergent Glyptodont.

From the study: “This clearly contradicts the old view that glyptodonts must have diverged from other cingulates at a very early point in their phylogenetic history, on the grounds that, for example, they possessed such features as a completely fused carapace lacking movable bands. Our results are more compatible but still incongruent with recent morphological cladistic analyses that position glyptodonts within a more inclusive but nevertheless paraphyletic Euphractinae.”

"Ancient DNA has the potential to solve a number of questions such as phylogenetic position--or the evolutionary relationship--of extinct mammals, but it is often extremely difficult to obtain usable DNA from fossil specimens," explains Poinar. "In this particular case, we used a technical trick to fish out DNA fragments and reconstruct the mitochondrial genome."

The study was published online in the Cell Press journal Current Biology.