When the weather gets cooler, the same armadillos may start foraging earlier in the day, becoming more diurnal. Shell game. An armadillo's hard shell is simply modified skin that serves as one way they protect themselves. When an armadillo feels threatened, it usually runs, digs, or presses its body down in the dirt to keep from getting flipped over. The three-banded armadillo is the only type of armadillo that can roll up into a ball for protection: its teardrop-shaped head plate seals the opening so there are no chinks in the armor.
Threats to armadillos include domestic dogs, wild cats, birds of prey, and humans. All my exes live in Texas. Nine-banded armadillos are also known as long-nosed armadillos because of their longer head and snout. Despite the common name, they can have eight or nine bands, depending on where they live. This is the type commonly seen in Texas, where it was adopted as the official state mammal.
Armored king. Besides being the largest of the armadillos, the giant armadillo also has the most teeth, up to ! It often rises on its back legs, balancing with its tail. It digs a burrow out of large ant nests, which are common in the Chaco region, using its six-inch claws. Little else is known about this amazing creature, one of the most endangered mammals in South America. All in the family. Armadillos are insectivores, and their closest relatives are sloths and anteaters.
Although most of their diet consists of insects and invertebrates, armadillos also eat fruit, eggs, and small animals. They even eat carrion. Smell that? A sensitive nose helps armadillos sniff out tasty treats. Nine-banded armadillos grunt constantly while rooting around for food.
If the food is underground, they use their long front claws to dig it up. This digging is why many people consider armadillos pests. Farmers and gardeners do not want armadillos rooting around for bugs while destroying their crops or plants. At the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park, armadillos eat a special insectivore pellet diet that is served dry or with water to make a paste, mealworms, crickets, and fruit or cooked root vegetables.
Little balls of joy. Breeding season for armadillos varies, but there are some armadillos that can reproduce year-round. Gestation is anywhere from two to five months.
Their cousins, the anteaters, have very similar tongues and claws. For more on anteaters, see the Armadillo Relatives page. Just a few cold days in a row can be deadly to an armadillo. Despite this fact, armadillos are steadily moving north.
For more on the northward migration of the nine-banded armadillo, see the Armadillo Expansion page. Hot blood going out through arteries is cooled by cold blood coming in through veins, and vice versa.
This means that not much heat actually goes out into the legs, keeping it in the body. This also means they will get frostbitten very easily, since they have no way to warm their extremities through blood flow. Marine mammals, like whales, use a similar net of veins and arteries to stop the loss of body heat through the fins.
Baby armadillos have soft shells, like human fingernails. They get harder as the animal grows, depositing bone under the skin to make a solid shell. If you are thinking about a pet armadillo, you had better check with your local authorities first.
According to the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, it is illegal to own an armadillo in the state of Maine. Hawaii has strict regulations against the import of any foreign animal, including armadillos.
The state of Montana classifies them as livestock, and regulates their import accordingly. Many states do not allow the private ownership of any wild animals without a license. If you find an abandoned or injured animal, you should take it to a licensed wildlife rehabilitation center. For more on armadillos in the home, see the Armadillos as Pets page. For more on armadillo rescue and rehabilitation, see the Armadillo Care page.
Nine-banded armadillos have a tendency to jump straight up into the air when they are startled, which often leads to their demise on highways. They are small enough that cars can pass right over them, but they leap up and hit the undercarriage of vehicles.
They are also poisoned, shot, or captured by people that consider them lawn and agricultural pests. Some are eaten or used for the curio trade. Armadillos have long been a source of food for humans.
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Nine-Banded Armadillo. Classification: Mammal. Description Approximately 20 species of armadillo exist, but the nine-banded is the only one found in the United States. Range Nine-banded armadillos are found in the southeastern United States, but their range has been expanding continually northward for more than a hundred years.
Diet These armadillos are generalist feeders and use their sense of smell to track down almost different foods, most of which are invertebrates such as beetles, cockroaches, wasps, yellow jackets, fire ants, scorpions, spiders, snails, and white grubs.
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