Can Armadillos Roll Into a Ball? (Almost None Can)

Can armadillos roll into a ball? Almost none of them can, and the one you have probably seen trundling across a road in Texas cannot even come close. Of the roughly twenty kinds alive today, only two pull off the trick, and the way they do it is stranger than any cartoon. So which armadillo can roll into a ball, and what do all the others do instead? Meet the three banded armadillo of South America. Its armour is made of hundreds of small bony plates grown inside its skin, capped with keratin, the same stuff as your fingernails. Unlike most armadillos, its shell sits loose, with a pocket of air underneath, so it can fold at its three bands and seal the last gap with the plate on its head and its armoured tail. The result is a living ball about the size of a grapefruit, and the three banded armadillo ball even comes with a trap. Watch an armadillo rolling into a ball step by step, and see why a fox can sniff it, roll it, but never open it. Then there is the nine banded armadillo, whose armour fits too tight to close. Do armadillos roll into a ball when they are scared? This one does the opposite: it leaps about a metre straight up, which works on a coyote and goes terribly wrong in front of a car. It also walks along river bottoms holding its breath, or gulps air to float like an armoured balloon. Plus quick facts on armadillo quadruplets, the giant armadillo with up to around a hundred teeth, and the tiny pink fairy armadillo. #armadillo #threebandedarmadillo