Armadillos

Today on Twitter I saw a picture of an unbelievable animal: six inches long max, with paddle-claw feet, white fur, and a pale pink shell-like covering (the color from blood vessels close to the surface)—the pink fairy armadillo (Chlamyphorus truncatus):

I find armadillos fascinating anyway, but this one blew me away. It lives in a narrow swath of Argentina and spends so much time underground that it is virtually unknown scientifically.

There are 21 extant species of armadillo (and not a few extinct ones), all from the Americas. Some are described simply by the number of plates of armor on their bodies. The largest, the giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus), grows to about 60 inches in length and weighs up to 120 pounds. Flexible three-banded Tolypeutes species are the only armadillos that are able to roll up into a ball when threatened by a predator. The Aztecs called armadillos (meaning "little armored ones" in Spanish) āyōtōchtli, or "turtle-rabbits." They are relatives of sloths and anteaters—other New World animals that are just as fascinating. (Xenarthrans. Check them out online.)

Here are a few of the 21:

Nine-banded armadillo, Dasypus novemcinctus

Three-banded armadillo, Tolypeutes tricinctus, rolled up

Six-banded armadillo, Euphractus sexcinctus

Screaming hairy armadillo, Chaetophractus vellerosus

There: five genera, from pink fairy to screaming hairy, of those extant. They have a fascinating life history too, including the fact that in the genus Dasypus offspring are always identical quadruplets. 

Armadillos feed on creatures in or on the ground: grubs, insects, other invertebrates; some specialize on ants or termites. They dig and burrow. As a result, they can be pests in the garden—a little like overgrown armored gophers, I guess, though gophers also pull entire plants down into their dens. I think I'd rather have armadillos than gophers. But then I guess I'd need to move to Texas or Florida, or somewhere in South America, to find out if I really mean that . . .