Armadillo Ball by scattered1

mLive shares that the nine-banded armadillo found in southwestern Indiana has been moving north according to the US Geological Survey:

There have been 97 armadillo occurrences in Indiana since 2013 with the northernmost sighting in Porter County about five miles from the Michigan border.

…Armadillos are considered established in 17 states including Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky. There have been occasional reports of armadillos in Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, and Virginia but no evidence of armadillo detections in Minnesota, Wisconsin or West Virginia.

The report says there is evidence to suggest that armadillos are likely about 56 miles away from reaching Ohio and that they are most likely to first reach the southwest corner of the state along either the Whitewater River or Ohio River. “It will be interesting to monitor when armadillos begin to regularly reach and establish in new states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Virginia,” the report said.

Michigan could be reached by armadillos coming north through Indiana or northeast from Illinois, experts say, but the state’s cold and harsh winters are the biggest deterrent to the species survival. The (armadillo) expansion will be slowed and eventually stopped as they encounter winters with extended periods of sub-freezing temperatures, according to the DNR.

Read on for more at mLive, and allow me to remind you that the Michigan DNR denied the existence of a Michigan cougar population for years until they were confronted with undeniable evidence!

The photographer shares that these are pictures of a southern three-banded armadillo, also known as the La Plata three-banded armadillo from South America. Like the 9-banded armadillo (link to Animal Diversity Web) its shell is made of keratin, the same protein that is in human fingernails. As seen here, the armadillo can roll itself into a ball, only exposing its shell, to protect itself from predators. This armadillo is named Dodge, as in “dodge ball.”

These were both taken at the Creature Conservancy in Ann Arbor back in 2020 – see more in their Captive Animals gallery on Flickr.

Southern Three-Banded Armadillo by scattered1