Wild Facts

Photo by Arnaud Boucher (Wikimedia)

Since the week has been “screaming” by for me, I figured we would talk about an incredible animal from South America called the Screaming Hairy Armadillo. Okay, so maybe the “screaming” pun was forced a little a bit but this week really has been flying by. We are going to talk about the appearance of this crazy animal but I figure you can guess two things right off the bat. Yes, that’s right, we are in fact, studying a hairy armadillo that likes to scream. Once again, the people who name these animals are not very creative!

As mentioned, you can find the Screaming Hairy Armadillo throughout the dry, desert areas of central South America. They tend to spend most of their days lounging around in deep burrows to keep out of the intense head of the afternoon sun. Once the aforementioned sun decides to set, our little Screaming friend will come out to forage. So if you happen to be an insect, lizard, snake or a plant in this area, then you better sleep with one eye open. Well, I guess that doesn’t apply to the vegetation but I am sure they can keep an leaf open or something like that.

Distribution Map - Photo by Chermundy (Wikimedia)

Okay, so I guess we should talk a bit more about the bizarre name of this Armadillo. As I said, these animals do have long hairs that grow between their protective plates. I am not sure what the purpose of this hair is but I am willing to bet they have bed head after napping all day in their burrow. Well, I guess it would technically be called burrow back instead of bed head. Similarly, as their name implies, these hairy armadillos are screamers. When the Screaming Hairy Armadillo is threatened they will begin to make a loud screaming or squealing sound to scare off the threat. Again, I am not sure how well this tactic works but I personally would be confused if a Hairy Armadillo started screaming at me.

So that does it for the second last Wild Fact of the week. See you tomorrow for the week finale!

Welcome back to another exciting week of bizarre animal facts.  I hope all of you enjoyed your weekend as much as I did.  We are going to start the week by heading to Argentina to learn about the smallest species of armadillo.  So if you are with me then grab your passport, make sure your liquids are not in your carry-on and don’t even think about saying Hi to Jack once you are in the airport.  Good, we are all ready to go so let’s head to South America!

As I mentioned the Pink Fairy Armadillo is the smallest of the armadillo family weighing in under a pound and measuring only about 6 inches in length, excluding their tail.  The colour of this armadillo is also unique. If you haven’t figured it out by the name and the picture then I guess you are having a rough start to the week.  Instead of waiting for you to finish your coffee and catch onto the colour of the armadillo, I will just let you know that they are indeed pink.  Technically, they are a pale rose colour but since I am a dude, my colour palette doesn’t have the weird colours like rose.

The pink fairy armadillo loves to eat ants and will do so by burrowing close to ant hills.  This doesn’t seem fair for the ants but you just can’t control who buys the property next to your house.  If you look around the virtual version of Argentina you will quickly notice that the pink fairy armadillo lives in a dry environment with a lot of sand.  This works well for this little hard shelled animal since they are excellent at digging.  The question that I ask is, does the pink fairy armadillo live in the desert because they are great at digging? Or are they great at digging because they live in the desert? I will let you make your own guess to the answer.  Either way this armadillo is an impressive digger and has the ability to bury itself in a matter of seconds if they feel threatened.  Interesting enough they will use their hard shell to act as a plug to the quickly made burrow.

Unfortunately, the pink fairy armadillo has been listed as threatened since 1970. An increase in the human population, which is causing habitat destruction is putting these animals at risk. Their numbers continue to dwindle.  This is just one of the many animals that are at risk due to habitat destruction.  When will we learn, right? Again, I will let you guess the answer to this question.

Well, that is Monday’s version of Wild Facts!  See you all tomorrow!