GANODONTA or TAENIODONTA, an extinct group of clawed mammals of the North American Eocene. They include two families, the Stylinodontidae, which resemble the sloths in certain characters of teeth, skull and feet, and the Conoryctidae, with a less distinct resemblance to the armadillos. In Stylinodon of the later Eocene the teeth are high-crowned, rootless, columnar oval prisms like those of the sloths, but retain an enamel cover ing, the skull is short-faced, deep-jawed, small-brained, limbs short and stout, pelvis deep, tail massive, fore foot of digging type with large compressed claws. The Conoryctidae of the Paleocene are more primitive, with unreduced tritubercular teeth and related in skull and skeleton to primitive Insectivora. The affinities of the group are uncertain. It is regarded by Osborn and Matthew as a side-branch from primitive edentate stock paralleling the ground-sloths.