Critters - Armadillos

What I see has to be science fiction straight out of an artist's imagination. "I'll draw a creature born with armor," says the artist. "That's cool. Long snout, small mouth, bumpy tongue covered with sticky saliva. Tapering tail with ever decreasing armor rings. More detail - hair sticking out between the chinks in the carapace and below it. What else? Aha! Long, sharp claws!" The artist draws it springing into the air, claws spread.

But the creature I'm approaching is real, a living work of nature's art, and it's no threat to me, though it might jump three or four feet straight up if startled. The size of an extra-large house cat, it's oblivious to my presence. All it wants to do with those claws is dig for the insects its sensitive, snuffling nose detects underground.

This timid mammal in search of food is Dasypus novemcinctus, the nine-banded armadillo, a k a the common long-nosed armadillo. Novemcinctus refers to the nine narrow plates that allow flexibility in its midsection.

Armadillo, meaning "little armored one," was the name the Spanish gave shell-wearing mammals they encountered in the New World. Armadillos exist only in the Americas, with South America home to all 20 species. Two of those, the nine-banded and the northern naked-tail armadillo, also live in Central America and Mexico.

Only the nine-banded migrated into this country. First recorded in Texas in 1849, it expanded its range north and east, at times aided by pranksters and animal dealers. In Florida, releases from a zoo in 1924 and a circus truck in 1936 started another migrating population. Now the northern edge of armadillo territory runs through Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. Though this expansion has taken almost 150 years, that's fast for a mammal.

It isn't the first armadillo to live here. A similar but larger armadillo lived in what is now Missouri during the Pleistocene (a geologic epoch). It disappeared at the end of the last ice age.

Armadillos have inspired curiosity in people first meeting the "little armored one" and frustration in those dealing with the "little lawn-and-garden tiller." It can smell beetles, larvae and ants six inches underground, and it spends its waking hours eating them. It digs, pushes its nose into loosened soil, shoots out its sticky tongue to collect a meal and immediately digs another hole. Since its tongue is not selective, the feast includes an occasional earthworm, snake or skink, as well as rocks and earth. The armadillo's scat, understandably, resembles clay marbles.

Digging in mulch, the armadillos damage plant roots. You fill it in, and they come and do it again, right in the same area. They're a hoot to try to catch.  They are pretty fast. They jump across the ground instead of running. The thing that's hilarious is they'll forget they're being chased and they'll stop. You run up and try to capture them, and they'll remember again and run another 50 yards.

A struggling armadillo's claws can inflict damage, so a long-handled net is useful if capture is necessary. Cornered, the armadillo curls up in a semi protected ball. Due to its response to surprise, its most formidable (but accidental) predator is the automobile - jumping straight up is not an ideal strategy.

If your lawn hasn't been excavated, you might view armadillos with amusement and wonder. Nose down and crowned with a crescent gleam of sunlight, it makes a constant whuff-whuff whuff sound as it sniffs and pokes into old diggings. When it digs, dirt flies out behind it, and its tail waves in a graceful curve.

Armadillos are nocturnal in summer but shift their activity to daytime or evening in winter.

The armadillo doesn't see well. Its hearing is better than its sight, but it often doesn't seem tuned in to humans approaching or talking. Researchers think its sense of smell alerts it if the wind is right. Nevertheless, an armadillo may snuffle right to the feet of a human, realize something is odd, then simply change direction - or lope quickly away. Its leather-like armor allows it to charge through brush and brambles without harm.

That armor is the intricately decorated skin of its head, back, sides and tail. Shoulder and haunch sections display a repeated small pattern, exquisitely detailed, and each band exhibits two rows of interlocking triangles. Younger adults are tan-gray with pink highlights; the oldest are gray.

There's more to admire than decoration, such as this amazing animal's two methods of crossing ponds and creeks. By swallowing air to inflate its stomach and intestines, it becomes buoyant and paddles on the surface. Or it sinks to the bottom and strolls across, postponing its next breath until it reaches the other side. Observers have reported underwater trips lasting six minutes.

And who wouldn't be impressed by the nine-banded's litters? The female releases only one ovum per year, but the embryo buds twice, producing genetically identical quadruplets, all males or all females, born with carapaces like soft pink leather.

Even more remarkable are the variable delays in pregnancies. After summer mating, implantation of the embryo in the uterine wall normally is delayed about 14 weeks. Gestation then takes four months, and pups are born in the spring. But implantation may be put off as long as 2 years, apparently when the female's environment isn't favorable for pups.

Though adults live one to a burrow (or sometimes in a hollow log), they may share space with other species such as rabbits, squirrels, opossums, wood rats and wood chucks.

If you find armadillos so novel and appealing you're moved to adopt one, don't rush into it. They're not the best housemates. Glands near the tail emit a musky odor, and at night the little armored one will collide noisily with walls and attempt to dig through the floor. Better to let it snuffle around outdoors, digging and flinging those armadillo divots, doing what an armadillo does best.

If your not happy with armadillos digging up your garden, this spray will effectively keep them away!