Nine-banded Armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus)
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One of the most curious mammals in the Hartman Prehistoric Garden, the Nine-banded Armadillo is rarely seen but easily recognized. Of 21 species of armadillos, this is the only one that occurs in the U.S. The animals living in the Garden make their burrows in secluded places, coming out to forage every night and leaving telltale holes in the mulch around the plants. Armadillos eat worms and insects, which they locate with their sensitive noses. They have small, peglike teeth in the rear part of their mouth, but mostly use a long tongue to capture their invertebrate prey.
The "shell" of the armadillo is actually made of many pieces of bone imbedded in the upper skin. The pieces are flexible but strong enough to offer protection from predators, if not from vehicles on the road.
One of the more interesting aspects about the armadillo's life cycle is that each litter consists of identical quadruplets. After an armadillo mates, the single fertilized egg splits twice before the young develop. Hence, every family of four is either all male or all female.
class: Mammalia / order: Edentata / family: Dasypodidae / genus: Dasypus / species: novemcinctus
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