Armadillo Facts

About the armadillo

The name is Spanish for little armored ones. Twenty-one living species have been described, some told apart by how many bands their armor has, and every one of them comes from the Americas, where they use a range of environments. Their legs are short, yet they can move fast. Armadillos belong to the superorder Xenarthra, alongside anteaters and sloths.

A typical armadillo is about 75 cm (30 in) long, tail included. The giant armadillo grows to 150 cm (59 in) and can weigh 54 kg (119 lb). The pink fairy armadillo, by contrast, is only 13 to 15 cm (5 to 6 in) long. Only Tolypeutes species can roll into a ball when a predator shows up. Genetic work has shown that the extinct glyptodonts, giants up to 1.5 meters tall, were true armadillos.

Did you know?

• Glyptodonts could weigh around 2 tonnes and died out about 12,000 years ago.
• Living armadillos are split into two families, Dasypodidae and Chlamyphoridae.
• Dasypus, whose members are called long-nosed or naked-tailed armadillos, is the only living genus in the family Dasypodidae.