January 18th, 2010 | 
Author: 
Welcome back to another exciting week of bizarre animal facts. I hope all of you enjoyed your weekend as much as I did. We are going to start the week by heading to Argentina to learn about the smallest species of armadillo. So if you are with me then grab your passport, make sure your liquids are not in your carry-on and don’t even think about saying Hi to Jack once you are in the airport. Good, we are all ready to go so let’s head to South America!
As I mentioned the Pink Fairy Armadillo is the smallest of the armadillo family weighing in under a pound and measuring only about 6 inches in length, excluding their tail. The colour of this armadillo is also unique. If you haven’t figured it out by the name and the picture then I guess you are having a rough start to the week. Instead of waiting for you to finish your coffee and catch onto the colour of the armadillo, I will just let you know that they are indeed pink. Technically, they are a pale rose colour but since I am a dude, my colour palette doesn’t have the weird colours like rose.
The pink fairy armadillo loves to eat ants and will do so by burrowing close to ant hills. This doesn’t seem fair for the ants but you just can’t control who buys the property next to your house. If you look around the virtual version of Argentina you will quickly notice that the pink fairy armadillo lives in a dry environment with a lot of sand. This works well for this little hard shelled animal since they are excellent at digging. The question that I ask is, does the pink fairy armadillo live in the desert because they are great at digging? Or are they great at digging because they live in the desert? I will let you make your own guess to the answer. Either way this armadillo is an impressive digger and has the ability to bury itself in a matter of seconds if they feel threatened. Interesting enough they will use their hard shell to act as a plug to the quickly made burrow.
Unfortunately, the pink fairy armadillo has been listed as threatened since 1970. An increase in the human population, which is causing habitat destruction is putting these animals at risk. Their numbers continue to dwindle. This is just one of the many animals that are at risk due to habitat destruction. When will we learn, right? Again, I will let you guess the answer to this question.
Well, that is Monday’s version of Wild Facts! See you all tomorrow!
Posted in Mammals, Pink Fairy Armadillo | 
Tags: Animal Facts, Armadillo, Armadillo Facts, Pink Fairy Armadillo
Ah, it’s so cute! We have lots of BIG armadillos where I live.
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Nathan Reply:
January 18th, 2010 at 7:54 AM
The big armadillos are pretty cool too! I am sure there will be a Wild Fact on them at some point in time.
Thanks for stopping by this morning!
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We have lots of them around here as well, although most of the ones I see are of the pancake variety on the yellow lines. Your color palette comment made me wonder how the male of the species feels about his pretty pink coloring (probably not quite as mortified as a male ladybug, right?) Of course I also wonder if the female of the species sees the male in a perpetually romantic light sans glasses (you know, the whole “rose colored” thing…er, nevermind
)
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Nathan Reply:
January 18th, 2010 at 7:58 AM
That is too bad that you mostly get to see the pancake variety. Hopefully, they will evolve to avoid vehicles but by then we will have probably invented some new vehicle that still runs them over.
That is a funny thought about the colouring of the males. Let’s hope that it is just normal for them and they have no insecurities towards their pretty pink or red colouring. Besides, if it helps them pick up the ladies then I am sure they would be fine it!
LOL on the “rose coloured” glasses comment! That made my morning!
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I wish we had some of those little guys around here – we have a boatload of ants, especially in the summer and sometimes they get into my cat food! Southern California is ALMOST a desert, isn’t it?
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Nathan Reply:
January 18th, 2010 at 7:27 PM
I am sure they would help out with all of the ants but then you would have little holes all over the place from these burrowing creatures.
It’s okay to eat a few ants with your cat food, Sparkle. It is just added protein
Thanks for stopping by!!
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He is a cute little guy. I could use him down in the front flower bed as I seem to have an overbundance of ants. Too bad, humans are so destructive to so many different species, I wonder if we will ever learn!
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Nathan Reply:
January 18th, 2010 at 7:29 PM
It seems like a lot of people have an ant problem. As I mentioned to Sparkle, the ants probably would be less of a nuisance compared to a larger burrowing animal.
As long as the human population continues to increase and money is to be made then I doubt we will learn our lessons anytime soon. Hopefully the Government can manage the impacts but that is a trying task especially in some of the under developed Countries of the world.
Thanks for the comment! I hope everything is going well for you.
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