Cingulata, part of the superorder Xenarthra, is an order of armored New World placental mammals. The armadillos, whose species are split between the families Dasypodidae and Chlamyphoridae, are the only surviving members of the order. Two groups of cingulates much larger than extant armadillos (maximum body mass of 45Â kg (100Â lb) in the case of the giant armadillo) existed until recently: pampatheriids, which reached weights of up to 200Â kg (440Â lb) and chlamyphorid glyptodonts, which attained masses of 2,000Â kg (4,400Â lb) or more.
The cingulate order originated in South America during the Paleocene epoch about 66 to 56Â million years ago, 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, all of the pampatheriids and giant glyptodonts 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.