DID YOU KNOW ARMADILLOS:

1) are mammals who nurse their babies?

2) always have four babies at once, all the same gender?

3) are living relatives of dinosaurs, related to anteaters and sloths?

4) are nearly blind and have poor hearing?

5) have an excellent sense of smell, which helps them locate and dig up insects (one of the few animals that can eat fire ants!), grubs, worms, reptiles, amphibians, small fruit and bird eggs with their sticky tongues?

6) have such a heavy hide they can sink in water and walk across streams, but if they want to float they just inhale and hold their breath?

7) have such a tough skin bullets can bounce off them?

8) in North America they have nine bands, but in South America they have three bands and can roll up into a ball?

9) can carry leprosy but rarely pass it to people

10) can jump three feet in the air, which they do when hit by a car, often leading to their death?

11) can be killed by dogs, coyotes, bobcats, foxes, raccoons, cougars and bears, but not by poison, since they only eat living things?

12) if causing a nuisance because of all their digging, they can be removed using a live trap and relocating them to another area.

13) live in seven foot deep burrows with twenty foot long tunnels where they sleep for up to sixteen hours a day. 

14) were a source of meat during the Depression known as Hoover hogs because they taste like pork?

15) are considered a delicacy to eat by people in Central and South America?

16) are fun to watch?

Beloved Puppetista Lisa Barnes was invited to include one of her fabulous puppets in an art exhibition of regional women artists at the Museum Gallery, Southern Illinois University. Spring 2020

An armadillo in the gallery!