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This armadillo’s underside is soft and vulnerable. It has only scattered hairs, and far back in its jaws sit about 30 small molars. Its tapered tail is coated with what look like bony teeth. Looking like a beautifully tiled floor, the nine-banded armadillo’s carapace, made of modified skin, consists of tough but pliable overlapping plates, separated by seven to eleven bands, that shield its shoulders and rump.
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Both their family and genus names, Dasypodida and Dasypus, are Greek and Latin combinations meaning “hairy foot ” botanist Carl Linnaeus, likely meant it to translate “rough-footed.” “Novemcinctus,” its species name, is Latin for “nine-banded.” The nine-banded armadillo ( Dasypus novemcinctus) joins anteaters, tree sloths and its 19 fellow armadillos in the superorder Xenarthra, a name combining Latin ‘xeno’ for strange and Greek ‘arthron’ for ‘joint.’ Armadillos are the only surviving creatures in the order Cingulata, whose name is Latin for ‘girdled’ or ‘belted’. “Armadillo” means “little armored one” in Spanish. Some call them “dillers,” “rhino pigs” or even the cruel moniker “Texas speed bumps ” they are often crushed under wheels. Texans once called armadillos “Hoover’s hogs” for their use as “poor man’s pork” during the Great Depression. One taxidermist offers a stuffed, beer-guzzling armadillo lying on its back for $299.95. Along with sensible uses-their leather creates boots, guitar straps, wallets and the lute-like South American charango-craftspeople fashion their shells into armadillo hats and lamps. Unfortunately, with their popularity, the species has suffered from our insatiable appetite for the bizarre. Nunn, “Home with the Armadillo Song” for its iconic line, “I want to go home with the armadillo…” A good many Texans misname “Lonesome Homesick Blues” by Gary P. More often we see their signs, holes and hillocks of upturned soil, sometimes disrupting lovingly tended gardens.
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We’re proud of these dauntless, armored little Texans rooting about for worms and insects. It faced stiff competition with the Texas Longhorn, which won for large animal. Thus, this armadillo, with House Concurrent Resolution #178, became the state’s Official Small Mammal. Armadillos’ migration to Texas roughly coincides with Texas’ becoming a state, it noted. Mirroring traits of the quintessential Texan, the nine-banded armadillo is “a hardy, pioneering creature,” one possessing “deep respect and need for the land, the ability to change and adapt, and a fierce, undying love for freedom,” according to 1995’s Texas legislature.