The nine-banded armadillo is a mammal that most Americans would recognize because of its adaptations for burrowing tunnels for safety and food. It’s a mammal that is covered in scale-like plates that protect it as it digs, and it has an exceptionally long, slender snout and tongue for retrieving the insects and other small creatures that it eats. It also has especially short legs – an adaptation for moving through tight burrows – and especially large claws for digging for its food and for creating a resting place underground. We recognize this armadillo because of these adaptations, its strange appearance, and its tendency to produce identical quadruplets -- but rarely see it because it is active mostly at night.
When the nine-banded armadillo encounters another creature that might pose a threat, it “rolls” its body into a tight ball such that all those scales provide the armor that protects it. Nine-banded Armadillos are now widespread in the southern U.S. and still spreading northward.
This armadillo has been here for only about a century. At first it seemed blocked for northward movement by aridity of the region. But growing human populations and an irrigated landscape changed things. They could move on their own, but were often moved – unseen -- along with cattle that were shipped elsewhere. Curious human visitors to the arid Southwest also sometimes took them home – aiding their rapid range expansion.