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A Look At The Strange Little Pink Fairy Armadillo

Armadillos are rather strange creatures, to begin with. People who see them for the first time are often bewildered by their strangeness. Most armadillos have flexible armor that helps to protect them from predators, large claws that allow them to dig easily and fight if needed and a number of peg-like teeth that let them consume their normal prey of ants and termites. It is hard to think of any of them as being stranger than the pink fairy armadillo (Chlamyphorus truncatus), though.

This little animal is native to Argentina and is the smallest kind of armadillo. Pink fairy armadillos seldom get as long as five inches and they don’t usually weigh more than a quarter of a pound. The tail is usually about an inch long.

They have an armor shell, like all armadillos, except that it only runs along the back and part of the sides instead of covering most of the animal. The shell is pink, hence the common name of the animal. The shell has 24 bands and allows the animal to curl up into a ball to protect the vulnerable belly. The rest of the body is covered by soft, dense, usually white or beige fur. It has little eyes and large, strong claws for its size.

Pink fairy armadillos eat primarily insects, especially ants and ant larvae, and invertebrates like worms, though they will eat some plant material on occasion when there aren’t enough insects about to eat.

The stout claws enable this creature to dig through ground easily and it uses the ability to create burrows and to find food. It has a poor sense of eyesight but a good sense of touch and hearing. It can move quite rapidly through dirt, too. When it is on the surface, it is usually slow moving.

This little armadillo is nocturnal. However, if it is caught outside of a burrow, it might be preyed upon by many different animals, including domesticated cats and dogs. They can also be dug up by peccaries or wild pigs.

Not a great deal is known about pink fairy armadillos and because of their habitat, size and the fact that they are nocturnal, it isn’t known how many there are. They are on the endangered species list, but scientists honestly don’t know if they are endangered or not. One thing is known, though; they don’t survive well in captivity, possibly due to extreme sensitivity to stress. The longest that one of these animals has lived in captivity has been around four years. Their normal lifespan in the wild is unknown.

‘Strange’ and ‘cute’ could both apply to the pink fairy armadillo. They would most likely be kept as pets if it wasn’t so apt to die in captivity. Still, this is another of those really strange critters that most people have never heard of or seen.

 

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Written by Rex Trulove

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