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Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: * HTML is OFF * Forum Code is ON Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by Jen[/i] [br]Armadillos are everywhere here in northern Arkansas. I was fascinated by them as a kid (ranking them somewhere close to the platypus in mystery), but now they've become pretty mundane since I see them all the time (mostly mashed in the road). But, my mom is moving down here soon & was curious about them, so she looked up some interesting facts that I didn't know about 'dillos... 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 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. A similar but larger - 130 lb - armadillo lived in what is now Missouri during the Pleistocene (a geologic epoch). When seriously alarmed, they jump across the ground instead of running. The 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. 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. 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. A small percentage carry leprosy, likely linked to laboratory studies. Source: http://mdc.mo.gov/conmag/1997/03/30.htm [brown][size=1]The View From My Boots: [green]www.bovesboots.blogspot.com[/green] [/size=1][/brown] [/quote]   Check here to include your profile signature. Check here to subscribe to this topic.