I saw an armadillo the other day. It is a leathery looking shelled mammal
They're so cute! I love their skin.
The word armadillo means "little armoured one in Spanish. That is a much cuter name for them.
That's so cute, I never knew it was a Spanish word
The Aztecs called Armadillos "turtle-rabbits" I thought that one was funny.
I see, I didn't know that!
You can find armadillos all throughout the Americas. They can be found inhabiting all types of environments.
I see, they seem like very adaptable creatures
diverged some 35 million years ago, much more recently than previously assumed.
Distribution.
Like all of the Xenarthra lineages, armadillos originated in South America. Due to the continent's former isolation, they were confined there for most of the Cenozoic. The recent formation of the Isthmus of Panama allowed a few members of the family to migrate northward into southern North America by the early Pleistocene, as part of the Great American Interchange. (Some of their much larger cingulate relatives, the pampatheres and chlamyphorid glyptodonts, made
leathery armour shell and long sharp claws for digging. They have short legs, but can move quite quickly. The average length of an armadillo is about , including tail. The giant armadillo grows up to and weighs up to , while the pink fairy armadillo has a length of only . When threatened by a predator, Tolypeutes species frequently roll up into a ball.
Etymology.
The word "armadillo" means "little armoured one" in Spanish. The Aztecs called them "āyōtōchtli" , Nahuatl for "turtle