It’s the only mammal with a shell. It digs so quickly it can escape predators by burrowing. It can inflate its intestines to cross streams. And it eats fire ants – and other insects – like popcorn.
Meet your new neighbor: The armadillo.
The official state small mammal of Texas has now been reported in nearly every county in the Triangle as it spreads east from its original entry points at the western end of the state.
"Densities will vary, but in the next 10 to 15 years they'll probably be in all 100 counties," said Colleen Olfenbuttel, Game Mammals and Surveys Unit Supervisor with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.
Olfenbuttel was among five scientists who on a recent day were conducting the state's first official necropsies on armadillos.
"It's pretty exciting for us," she said on a break between dissections. "We're learning as we're going, making comparisons of how similar and how different they are to the other mammals we've sampled and necropsied."
And boy, are they different. First on the odd attributes list, of course, is the shell, which is really more like two shells - one in front and one in back - with overlapping bands in the middle to allow the creatures to bend and twist.
The shell is a little flexible but hard. Hard enough that in at least a couple of unusual cases in 2015, bullets ricocheted off armadillos and struck humans. In Texas, the bullet hit the shooter himself, while in Georgia, the shooter's mother-in-law was wounded.
Also, for reasons science hasn't yet determined, armadillos always reproduce in identical quadruplets. They can hold their breath for up to six minutes and walk across streams under water. They can jump up to four feet high when frightened and can smell insects six inches under ground.
Opportunistic and adaptable
The Wildlife Resources Commission's biologists routinely perform postmortem examinations on animals to monitor diseases, causes of death, and other things that can help them manage species. Only recently have armadillos become common enough for the agency to obtain enough specimens for study.
Understanding the armadillo population here is more important as interactions with other creatures and with humans increase, Olfenbuttel said. For example, the state just began allowing wildlife rehabilitation experts to work with armadillos.
You can help track the armadillo expansion
- Take photos or a video of armadillo if possible
- Write down the location; the more specific the better. Coordinates are preferred, but the nearest crossroads, town, and county also can help
- Record the date of your observation
- Note the animal's condition. Was the armadillo alive or dead?
The NC Wildlife Resources Commission needs help from the public to help track their range expansion across the state.
To report a sighting:
- Submit it on the NC Armadillo Project in iNaturalist
- Email the information to armadillo@ncwildlife.gov
- CALL the NC Wildlife Helpline at 866-318-2401
You can report your observation in any one of three ways:
"Since armadillos are so new to North Carolina, we don't have any idea what diseases they might have," she said. "They could be carrying the same diseases that armadillos in other states have when they moved into North Carolina, or they could have been separated from other armadillos."
"So maybe the armadillos North Carolina don't have the same diseases as those in Tennessee or Georgia," she said.
Five of the six armadillos the biologists were conducting necropsies on had been killed by a wildlife control agent in Western North Carolina with a permit to remove those damaging property. The sixth was found by Olfenbuttel herself dead along a highway in Chatham County -- the first confirmed case there.
It likely won't be the last, because armadillos are on the march. Well, maybe on more of a meandering waddle, to colonize territory here and in many other states.
"In terms of where exactly they're going to stop, it's, it's really kind of hard to say," said Jim Loughry, a retired biology professor at Valdosta State University who studied armadillos for decades.
Armadillos originated in South America and were first documented in Texas in the mid-1800s.
They spread steadily north and east, crossing the Mississippi River in the mid-20th century and merging with populations in Florida believed to have descended from escaped animals from roadside attractions. Today they occupy much of the Southeast and have expanded into states including Illinois, Kansas, and Iowa.
Scientists once believed cold weather would limit their spread.
"It used to be thought that a certain number of days per year where ... the high temperature for the day didn't get above freezing, they wouldn't be able to make it, they'd just freeze to death," Loughry said. "But they're very adaptable, and they seem to not have any qualms about exploiting human habitats."
They can shelter in barns and crawl spaces, tolerate human activity, and travel long distances. They also are opportunistic eaters.
"So if they're moving into new areas, if something from their old diet isn't there, it's not like they're out of luck. They can find something else to exploit instead," Loughry said.
The first armadillo in North Carolina was documented in Macon County in 2007. Breeding populations are now established in at least eight western counties. The Wildlife Resources Commission has confirmed sightings in 42 of the state's 100 counties and has received reports of varying reliability from 84.
"That first 10 years, the majority of the observations were of vehicle-struck armadillos," Olfenbuttel said. "That started to shift about five years ago or so, where suddenly the majority of the observations were of live armadillos."
Celebrated in culture, but unwelcome in many gardens
Their arrival brings both benefits and challenges. Their burrowing can improve habitat for other species, earning them the nickname "ecosystem engineers." They consume large numbers of insects, including fire ants. But their digging can damage lawns, golf courses, and gardens.
Like many wild animals, they can carry diseases, including some transmissible to humans, though rarely. A small percentage in other states have been found to carry leprosy, but about 95 percent of humans are immune, and for the rest, the illness can be treated with standard antibiotics. It's unclear yet whether those in North Carolina are carrying it, and if so, how common it is.
"Our advice is the same as the advice we give when people are interacting with other wild animals," Olfenbuttel said. "Don't touch it. Stay a respectful distance. And if you are for some reason going to touch the animal - maybe you're picking up a dead animal out of the roadway or out of your yard - please wear gloves."
"Don't kiss or lick the armadillo, and you'll be fine," she said.
She's of course joking. Licking an armadillo is probably not the first thing people think of when they see one. But they do have a certain charisma, like that of a homely character actor.
"Maybe the Steve Buscemi type, right? The person you immediately recognize, and you know, kind of odd looking," said Joshua Nixon, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota who founded a website called "Armadillo Online!" in 1995.
"That independence, that stubbornness, that unwillingness to give up. That is certainly very much associated with Texas, and I think that the armadillo has a little bit of the same thing going on there," Nixon said.
Armadillos are culturally entwined with Texas, where they are even featured in bar and festival races.
They've become an almost cult-like subject of songs, poems, and a lot of humorous nicknames: Texas speed bumps, possums on the half-shell, or tactical possums. And Hoover hogs, because they were a food source during the depression, which began under President Herbert Hoover.
"There's kind of a geographic aspect to how people view armadillos," Loughry said. "Texas loves them."
"But for whatever reason, as you come to the east, people view them as invasive and think that they shouldn't be here and they want them gone."
For now, it's not clear how they'll fit into the people and culture of North Carolina. Or the environment. But we're about to find out.
