Nine-banded armadillo

The armadillo has a hard shell, like a suit of armor.

It has a long, pink nose, big ears and a long, stripy tail. In the middle of its back, the shell has bands that bend when it moves.

The nine-banded armadillo is about the size of a big house cat, 60 to 80 centimeters long including its tail. Its body is covered with armor: a hard shield over the shoulders, another over the hips, and flexible bands in between. Most have nine bands, which gives the animal its name, but some have eight to eleven.

Its belly has no armor, only soft, pale skin with small tufts of hair. It has a long, pinkish, pig-like snout, hairless ears and short legs with strong claws.

Dasypus novemcinctus belongs to the armadillos, a group of 20 species that, with anteaters and sloths, are xenarthrans. Animal Diversity Web gives a total length of 0.615 to 0.8 meters and a weight of 3.6 to 7.7 kilograms, males slightly heavier than females.

The armor is made of osteoderms, bony plates covered in tough keratinous skin, forming a shoulder shield, a pelvic shield and typically nine movable bands (eight to eleven occur). It makes up about 16 percent of body weight, grows continuously and is never shed. The head is partly armored, but the ears are bare and bumpy, and the underside is soft. The teeth are simple pegs without enamel that grow throughout life.

Nine-banded armadillos live in North, Central and South America.

They like woods and brushy places with soft soil. They sleep in burrows under the ground.

Nine-banded armadillos live from Argentina and Uruguay through Central America and Mexico into the southern United States. They like forests and brushy places with soft soil and enough rain, and they are rarely found in dry deserts.

In about 1850 they lived no farther north than Texas. Since then they have spread north and east, as far north as Missouri, crossing rivers on new bridges and moving along roads. People also carried armadillos to new places, including Florida, where they now live too. Our photo was taken in the Green Swamp of central Florida.

The IUCN's 2013 assessment lists the species as native from the southern United States through Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago and Grenada, and South America to Argentina and Uruguay, up to 2,000 meters. Animal Diversity Web notes a preference for forest and scrub with at least 38 centimeters of rain a year, where soft soil and leaf litter make digging and foraging easier.

In the United States, armadillos were no farther north than Texas as late as 1850. Since the late 19th century they have spread northeast and are common as far north as Missouri; Animal Diversity Web notes that roads and bridges also helped people introduce armadillos to new areas, and that Florida's armadillos were introduced; Britannica notes sightings in Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois. Cold limits them: they are uncommon where more than 24 days a year freeze or January averages below −2 °C. Roads, bridges and declining predators appear to have helped the spread.