Armadillo, commonly known as "armored pig". Although the armadillo looks grotesque and looks between a pig and a pangolin, it is closest to arboreal mammals, such as anteaters and sloths. Together with them, it is classified as an ancient species and was once called "Ardentata". Although it literally means "toothless", unlike anteaters, armadillos do have a pair of simple, tooth-like circular "teeth". This order was recently renamed Heteropoda. armadillo
Armadillos, like "ancient warriors", can protect themselves with armor, so they can defend themselves against the enemy, so some people call them "armored rats". The scales on the armadillo are made up of many tiny bone fragments, and each bone fragment has a layer of horny scales, which becomes its protective shell against the enemy. Some armadillos rely on their hard bone armor to curl up tightly into a spherical armored regiment, and even large carnivores can't hurt it. You can call it a guy who can't break his teeth, punches and kicks. The representative species are: armadillo, body length 1m, weight 45-50kg, dark brown, with five fingers and toes on four limbs. Nine-legged armadillo, with nine movable belts, is less than 50 cm long and weighs 5 ~ 8 kg. Its back is light brown and light yellow, with four fingers on its front foot and five toes on its back. The armadillo is the smallest, with a body length of 12 cm and a weight of 0. 1 kg, and pink armor. Many kinds of armadillos can kill pests and poisonous snakes; Armored leather can be made into baskets and toys; You can also keep exhibitions. Due to the destruction of habitat and the invasion of carnivores, the distribution range is shrinking day by day, and some are close to extinction.
Edit the physical characteristics of this section.
Body length 12.5 ~ 100 cm, tail length 2.5 ~ 50 cm, and weight can reach more than 50 kg. The sides of the upper body and the outside of the limbs are often covered with bone plates and scales to form armor to protect the body. This kind of armor is divided into front and back parts by several rows of movable horizontal belts, and the horizontal belts are connected by elastic leather, which can curl the body into a ball to prevent Sentinel Prime from invading; Small ears; The tongue can be stretched; The forelimb has 3 ~ 5 fingers, the fingers and claws are bent strongly, and the hind limbs have 5 toes and claws; Teeth are small, nail-shaped, and grow for life. armadillo
The most obvious feature that distinguishes the armadillo from other animals is its scaly armor. Because of this pair of armor, it was called "armored pig" by Spanish conquerors. When the Spanish were rampant in Central America, it was often seen that Aztec traders traded armadillo meat for cocoa beans at village fairs. They also noticed that armadillo meat was "very delicious". Although some people still hunt armadillos for meat and use their skins as baskets, armadillos are mainly used as scientific research objects to study genetics and embryology. Scientists may prove that armadillos can play an important role in the efforts to eradicate leprosy completely. Armadillo, like an "ancient warrior", is covered with armor to protect itself from the enemy, so some people call it an "armored mouse". The scales on the armadillo are made up of many tiny bone fragments, and each bone fragment has a layer of horny scales, which becomes its protective shell against the enemy. Some armadillos rely on their hard bone armor to curl up tightly into a spherical armored regiment, and even large carnivores can't hurt it. You can call it a guy who can't break his teeth, punches and kicks.
Edit the survival distribution of this paragraph
Armadillo is a rare animal unique to South America and Central America. It mainly inhabits forests, grasslands and deserts.
The defense ability of editing this paragraph
According to the research of zoologists, armadillo is one of the animals with the most perfect natural defense ability among mammals. Its defense means can be summarized as "one escape, two blockades and three disguises". The so-called "escape" means that the speed of escape is quite amazing. Armadillos have amazing sense of smell and vision. When it is in danger everywhere, it can hide its body in the sand at a very fast speed. Although its legs are short, its ability to dig and dig holes is very strong. Someone once described the ability of the armadillo to make holes like this: it can make holes very fast, and it can be seen when riding a horse, but it has already got into the soil at the moment of dismounting. The so-called "blocking" means that after it escaped into the earth hole, it blocked the hole tightly with the tail shield of the armadillo, like a "shield", so that the enemy could not hurt it. The so-called "camouflage" is the curling method mentioned above. The whole body curled up into a ball, and the body was surrounded by "real armor" in all directions, so that the enemy could not start biting. armadillo
Armadillo's armor consists of many small bone pieces; Every bone has a layer of cutin, which is extremely hard. Therefore, this armor has become their best self-defense weapon. Whenever there is danger, if it is too late to escape or get into the hole, the armadillo will curl up and protect itself. Although armadillos are covered with hard armor, this does not hinder their normal activities, even their fast running. It turns out that armadillos only have bone scales on the shoulders and buttocks to form a whole, such as tortoise shells, which cannot be stretched; The scales on the chest and back are divided into petals, which are connected by muscles and can be stretched freely. In addition to armor, another self-defense skill of armadillos is to make holes. Armadillo's ability to make holes is extremely strong, thanks to its hard claws. In the forest, you can often see large and small armadillo caves, and it is easy to judge whether there are animals living in them according to the old and new soil at the entrance. Most armadillo caves seem to be distributed in relatively mild areas of the forest, but some armadillo caves make their homes in special places. The ecological station relies on the generator to provide energy, and the generator is noisy when it works, so it is placed behind a boulder opposite to the ecological station. I don't know when it was later, an armadillo also took a fancy to this "geomantic treasure", dug a hole under the board supporting the generator, entered the rock, and let the diesel smell smoke and the motor make noise, and lived in it calmly.
Edit this paragraph survival skills
In order to survive, armadillos not only have armor against enemies, but also have beneficial habits such as omnivorousness, not sleeping at night, and being able to inhabit natural caves formed in nature. Habitat can be dense bushes, grasslands, wilderness, and usually there is a shallow pond or mud pit for bathing. During the day, armadillos hide in natural caves or self-dug caves. The cross-section of the cave is narrow and round, with a diameter of about 8 ~ 10 inch, sometimes as long as 25 inches. Usually a crypt has several branches, one of which ends in a nest. The nest is covered with soft leaves and hay. A dry armadillo can make several caves, and each cave has several exits. These holes are hidden between roots, in empty trunks or at the foot of dams. In crawling, armadillos can climb over the electric fence and trudge in shallow water. If the river is narrow, the armadillo will take a deep breath, dive into the water and climb from the bottom of the river to the other side. If the river is wide, it sucks in air, fills its stomach and swims across. armadillo
When insects are short of food, armadillos will increase their foraging time and even go out during the day. Feeding objects have also expanded to small lizards, fire dragons, snakes, frogs and toads. It prefers snake eggs, occasionally eating quail, turkey and other eggs and young birds nesting on the ground. Some armadillos also eat eggs and small mammals they meet by chance. Male and female armadillos usually occupy different territories. But when the mating season comes in late summer, male armadillos start looking for female mates. After mating, they parted ways again. Armadillos have unique physiological functions during pregnancy. A fertilized egg will soon split into two independent ones and then split into four independent ones. The chromosome structures of the four fertilized eggs are identical. Then this division stopped. Then in the fallopian tube, they "swam" for about a month and entered the uterus. Generally speaking, small armadillos born in the same birth are of the same sex. This phenomenon provides scientists with an opportunity to study how the same set of genes affects the growth and development of animal offspring. The pregnant time of armadillos determines that little armadillos are born after March or April every year, when insect food is abundant. When the little armadillo was born, his physical development was almost completed. Except for body shape, Hwa-Sung Do's armadillos are almost the same in all aspects. Their armor is soft and flexible. Armor will harden with age. A few hours after birth, the little armadillo can follow her mother to raid for food at night. However, two months after weaning. At that time, they went out to find their own territory. Small armadillos mature in two to three years. Unless there is an accident, the average life span is 10 ~ 15 years. Armadillos will die because of the predation of various carnivorous natural enemies. These natural enemies include dogs, bobcats, bears and coyotes. When threatened, armadillos will rush to nearby trees, use dense branches as barriers, or form a tight ball. If you have a minute or two to avoid it, it will quickly dig a hole that can tightly wrap its body, making it almost impossible for an attacker to pull it out. However, the biggest natural enemies of armadillos are people and vehicles. It is born short-sighted and has the habit of foraging for dead prey on highways, so it often appears on highways. The armadillo's "natural shock reaction" made the situation worse. As soon as they were frightened, the armadillos jumped up and ran into the lower part of a passing car.
Edit the species classification of this paragraph.
armadillo
Armadillo is a rare animal unique to South America and Central America. It mainly inhabits forests, grasslands and deserts. Zoologists divide this huge animal family into the following categories according to the number of scales: three-pass armadillos, six-pass armadillos and nine-pass armadillos. In addition, there is another kind of armadillo (also known as the big armadillo), with a body length of 90cm and a tail length of 50cm, which is almost half the size of a pig. It is the eldest of the armadillos.
Edit the eating habits of this paragraph.
However, no matter what kind of armadillos are, they are all terrestrial animals. Nocturnal Animals is omnivorous and eats beetles, worms, termites, black ants, locusts, lizards, eggs, nuts and snakes. More interestingly, armadillos like to eat rotting animal carcasses. Where there are rotting dead cows, dead horses and other animals on the grassland, there are armadillos digging holes, and they can easily get these foods.
Edit the species value of this paragraph.
Medicinal: The bile of this animal can be used as medicine, such as smart agent. armadillo
Ornamental: You can also watch it in the zoo, because it looks really interesting.
Editing this paragraph has both advantages and disadvantages.
Armadillo is a kind of beneficial animal, which eats many termites, fire ants, sugarcane borers, scorpions, root-cutting insects and other pests. On the other hand, when insects are short of food, armadillos will turn to farmland. It will cause serious losses to crops such as peanuts, corn and melons. From the ecological point of view, the armadillo cave also provides an ideal living cave for owls, rabbits, opossums and even burrowing nose rats. However, the caves of the armadillo also destroy the safety of dams and roadbed, and often make passing livestock break their legs. The delicious meat of armadillos has always been the goal of hunters. It is said that it tastes delicious after roasting, even more delicious than pork. Even today, this "poor man's pork" occasionally appears on the family table in rural areas. In addition, in the area where this animal lives, the skin of armadillos is also made into baskets or strings of guitars and other musical instruments. armadillo
Armadillo is docile and easy to domesticate, so don't worry about biting it when you hold it in your hand. Some people keep it as a pet to control termites and other household pests. But the strong musk smell of armadillos is a kind of pollution to the family environment. Recently, Elitano Stals, a biochemist at the Southern Institute of the New Iberian Bay in Louisiana, found that armadillos are easily infected with leprosy and are natural bacterial cultures. Thanks to her work and the support of the National Health Organization, a large number of armadillo parasitic experimental centers have been established in North and South America and Europe, which have become cheap sources of leprosy germs. This has created favorable conditions for promoting the production of more effective vaccines. Inspired by the relationship between leprosy and AIDS, scientists are investigating to find out whether armadillos can be used as experimental carriers to help explore the cause and treatment of AIDS. Perhaps one day, this strange-looking armadillo will play a key role in treating the "sinking" and "new diseases" of human beings.
Edit the characteristics of families and genera in this paragraph.
It is worth noting that all kinds of armor have protective effects. This is the largest and most widely distributed family. Including 8 genera and 20 species. Tropical forests, grasslands, semi-deserts and warm plains and forests distributed in Central and South America. The most obvious feature of this structure is the hinge pin. This scale composed of bones is also covered with horny epidermis. Scales on the body form various styles, but they are usually a head shield and a series of protective shields for the neck and most of the body. There are sparse hairs on the soft skin between the abdomen and the shield plates of the limbs. Some species can curl to protect their fragile limbs and abdomen. The armadillo is the largest species, weighing 60 kilograms, and the smallest armadillo is only 120 grams. The skull is long and the back and abdomen are flat. With the increase of age, teeth will partially fall off. All the arms and legs of the armadillo are strong, the front and rear feet are big, and the claws are dull. Except for the armadillo, the front and rear feet are all five toes, and the rear foot is often a toe. Compared with other kinds of armadillos, the eating habits and sports of armadillos are not more specialized. Most species mainly feed on insects, but they also eat invertebrates and small vertebrates, and also eat some plant foods.
Edit this paragraph of species development.
Although it seems slow, clumsy and stupid, armadillos have lived on the earth for 55 million years. During the ice age, it was a lush population, including at least one beast called the toothed beast weighing 2000 pounds. After thousands of years, most of them became extinct, and only 20 species survived. Among them, all species except one live in Latin America. Armadillos in the rainforests of South America range from 5-inch-long babies to 65,438+000-pound behemoths. Armor, which can resist most carnivores, is one of the important factors for armadillos to survive so far. This pair of armor consists of thin bone pieces wrapped in scaly keratinized epidermis. It protects the head, back, ribs, feet and tail like a shield. There are a series of folds on the armor, so that the body can bend freely in free movement, although this armor makes the armadillo move with a stiff and strange gait. There are two obviously oversized ears on the head, covered with armor. Armadillo's lower abdomen and inner legs don't have this unique armor, but they are wrapped in thick epidermis. The 10-fold armadillo is named because it has nine folds on its back. It is the only living species in America. It is 10 inch long and weighs 9 ~ 15 pounds. From an ecological point of view, it didn't take long for it to move into the United States from the internal border of the United States. When the isthmus of Panama reconnected with the continents of North and South America 9 million years ago, armadillos, opossums and giant ground sloths crossed the isthmus with other animals and migrated northward. Giant ground sloths died out at the end of the last ice age. Armadillos survived, but only in a certain area, while opossums successfully spread all over North America. In the United States, before people reclaimed wasteland and wiped out the natural enemies of the armadillo, its distribution was always confined to the Rio Grande River (between the United States and Mexico) and Rio Blaja River basins in the south and Texas in the middle. 1928, this animal was found in Oklahoma and Louisiana. Since then, armadillos have slowly spread northward to Arkansas and eastward to the edge of the bay. In addition, an independent group of Florida armadillos originated from some armadillos that were once kept as pets and later released to Yuanye. They appeared in this area with the armadillos that spread to the edge of the bay in the 1950s. Since then, the armadillo's habitat has expanded to Georgia, Oklahoma and Kansas. However, it seems impossible to spread to the north. If winter is too cold, they will die of cold and hunger. They have no habit of hibernating.
Edit this species ramble
The armadillo is also called "armored mouse" because its posture and shape are like a big mouse wearing armor alone. Armadillo's armor consists of many small bone pieces; Every bone has a layer of cutin, which is extremely hard. Therefore, this armor has become their best self-defense weapon. Whenever there is danger, if it is too late to escape or get into the hole, the armadillo will curl up and protect itself. Although armadillos are covered with hard armor, this does not hinder their normal activities, even their fast running. It turns out that armadillos only have bone scales on the shoulders and buttocks to form a whole, such as tortoise shells, which cannot be stretched; The scales on the chest and back are divided into petals, which are connected by muscles and can be stretched freely. In addition to armor, another self-defense skill of armadillos is to make holes. Armadillo's ability to make holes is extremely strong, thanks to its hard claws. In the forest, you can often see large and small armadillo caves, and it is easy to judge whether there are animals living in them according to the old and new soil at the entrance. Most armadillo caves seem to be distributed in relatively mild areas of the forest, but some armadillo caves make their homes in special places. The ecological station relies on the generator to provide energy, and the generator is noisy when it works, so it is placed behind a boulder opposite to the ecological station. I don't know when it was later, an armadillo also took a fancy to this "land of geomantic omen", dug a hole under the board supporting the generator, and entered the rock, making the diesel smell make a sound, and lived a small life calmly inside. One day, however, the quiet life of this armadillo was broken. One night, jaguar's throat suddenly came from the direction of the generator. Everyone who heard the cry in the ecological station was surprised: something special must have happened, because jaguars don't roar easily. The next morning, everyone ran over and saw that the generator was lying a few meters away, with its ass up and different positions scattered on the board. It is speculated that jaguar may have tracked the armadillo here, the former entered the cave, and the latter was unwilling or angry with these obstacles and took "destruction" action. However, jaguars will never fan the air every time. I personally found a fresh armadillo armor by the river. There was a pool of blood nearby, and several jaguar footprints were clearly printed on it. I once played a trick on the armadillo under the rock next to the generator. During the day, while the armadillo was sleeping in the cave, I put a cage for catching animals in the hole where it came in and out, and then blocked both sides with iron cylinders filled with diesel oil. This kind of cage is open on both sides. Once the animal comes in and touches the pedal, the movable doors at both ends will close and get stuck tightly. The next morning, I went to check whether the cage was closed, but the armadillo was not in it. I reinstalled the cage. I'll see it the next morning, and it's still the same. After four days and four nights, I made a compromise, because I really didn't want this innocent creature to die of my prank. Armadillo is used to having sex at night, so it is generally not easy to be seen. I have only seen armadillos once in the forest. One night, I got up bleary-eyed and came to the edge of the forest with dim headlights. Just entering the intersection, I found a shadow shaking in front of my eyes. I was completely awakened at once, and when I looked intently, it turned out to be a big armadillo, sniffing and licking slowly on the ground with its nose and mouth. I'm surprised and happy. I'm going to have a look. Unexpectedly, the armadillo suddenly found me, my body was lifted, and my front paws were facing me. Theoretically, armadillos don't attack people, but who knows if this monster will suddenly have the idea of larger foe. I stood still, shining the dim light on the tip of the armadillo. I really didn't want to start a hand-to-hand combat between man and beast. I don't know how long it took, maybe only a minute or two, but the armadillo couldn't stand it anymore and suddenly turned into the forest.
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Animal name. Looks like a bird's beak, looks like a snake's tail, and plays dead when you see people. Ancient elephant occupiers believed that the appearance of armadillos was a sign that locusts destroyed crops. Mount Eshan, a scenic spot in the East Mountain of Shanhaijing, said, "There is a beast that looks like a bird's beak and sleeps when it sees people. It is called an armadillo, and it will be defeated when you see it. " Jin Guo Pu Note: Sleep, "Play dead." In order to defeat, "words hurt Tian Miao."