The name “armadillo”, or “little armored thing”, does originate from the Spanish conquistadores. The Aztec name was Azotochtli, which means “turtle-rabbit.” The British author Rudyard Kipling wrote in one of his “Just So Stories” for children that the armadillo was actually born out of an alliance between a turtle and a hedgehog.
When I was writing we ran into the query “What is the history of the Armadillo?”.
Some think that History and distribution. Like all of the Xenarthra lineages, armadillos originated in South America. Due to the continent’s former isolation, they were confined there for most of the Cenozoic.
The armadillos belong to the order Cingulata, family Dasypodidae. Their closest living relatives are sloths and anteaters . Together, armadillos (order Cingulata) and sloths and anteaters (order Pilosa) make up the superorder Xenarthra. These animals first evolved around fifty million years ago, in what is now South America.
When we were writing we ran into the question “What is the story behind the Armadillo?”.
Some believe that armadillos in myth and story. An ancient Maya legend says that the first armadillos were created to teach a lesson in humility to a couple of minor gods. According to the legend, Hachakyum, the Maya Sun God, sat the two unruly deities down on a bench before all the other gods.
Where did the armadillos of North America come from?
North American subspecies exhibit reduced genetic variability compared with the subspecies of South America, indicating the armadillos of North America are descended from a relatively small number of individuals that migrated from south of the Rio Grande.
The period in which the Armadillos migrated into North America was a period when the fish of the freshwater migrated into North America through Central America into the south and from the south into North America through the centre. This was possible when the piece of land in Panama came up and formed a bridge to like North and South America.
What is the distribution of the Armadillo?
The nine-banded armadillo (D. novemcinctus) has the widest distribution of any armadillo species. Only two armadillo species occur outside of South America — the nine-banded armadillo and the northern naked-tailed armadillo (Cabassous centralis). Members of Superorder Xenarthra (sloths, anteaters and armadillos) originated in South America.
Are there giant armadillos in Argentina?
, and giant armadillo. The giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus), colloquially tatou, ocarro, tatu-canastra or tatú carreta, is the largest living species of armadillo (although their extinct relatives, the glyptodonts, were much larger). It lives in South America, ranging throughout as far south as northern Argentina.