Better Living Through Zoology: The Armadillo

Jeni and I went on a brief camping excursion this weekend with the dogs to Colorado Bend State Park. We had a good hike, the dogs swam in the river, and we all encountered various wildlife. Jeni, for example, was almost hit in the leg by a bass while wading in the river. We saw lots of deer, a roadrunner, a raccoon, a hawk - and about twenty armadillos.

We saw (and, of course, heard) several as we were pitching the tent, but on our first hike we realized the place was just swarming with the things. Dozens of armored creatures, out on patrol, like tiny tanks. Like some sort of armed force. It was....a phalanx of armadillos! No, wait. A legion! No, no. A platoon of armadillos! Nah - something else - armor, armed, armadillo - Gah! It's on the tip of my tongue!

Anyway, for Bernice and Rose this was a new experience. Armadillos can't see well at all, and aren't the brightest bulbs in the batch, so the dogs were usually in close smelling distance before the critters realized anything unusual was going on and shuffled off into the brush. It made for interesting hiking. After seeing so many up close and getting a good look at the armor, I wondered aloud, "I wonder how they mate?" To which my wife responded with her best Barry White impression, speak-singing the following: "When the night comes/ The armor comes off/ exposing the soft under-belly/ Bwwow-chicka-bwow-wah!"

I love that woman.

And now, I am proud to present - Random Facts About Armadillos!
- There are 20 different species of armadillo, including the Giant Armadillo, and - no lie - the Pink Fairy Armadillo
- The only species native to the U.S. the nine-banded one, pictured below
- The nine-banded kind doesn't roll into a ball to protect itself - too much armor
- It also has too much armor to swim, and will sink, so for crossing streams the armadillo has two options:
1) Hold its breath (up to six minutes!) and walk across the bottom
2) Inflate its stomach with air and paddle itself across - it's the only mammal that can do that
- A few years ago, a baby armadillo came out of the brush where I was camping, wandered up to me, and sniffed my foot. Then he looked up at me quizzically. If armadillos could shrug, he would have, and then he hopped away. This isn't a fact about armadillos, but I thought it was cool.
- But the craziest thing about armadillos, in my opinion, is that baby armadillos are always - always - born in sets of identical quadruplets. Crazy!




Number one in a four piece set.