The young armadillo is weaned at 10 weeks and reaches sexual maturity at 9–12 months. The armor hardens by the third or fourth week, around the same time the eyes and earflaps open. The newborn’s armor is soft, but its claws are fully developed, and it can walk and roll into a ball within hours of birth. The female carries the young for a gestation period of 120 days at the end of which single, blind offspring is born. The mating season lasts from October to January, during which there is a brief courtship before mating. They then quickly snap shut in an effort to startle the predator. When threatened, they occasionally do not seal their armor completely, but wait until they are touched. They mark their territories with secretions from glands on their face, feet, and rump. When they are not foraging, they move with a sort of trot, bouncing on the tips of their front toes, while their hind feet slap flatly on the ground. They prefer to rest under bushes, rather than dig burrows, and their ability to roll into a ball makes defensive digging unnecessary. All the armadillos are spectacular diggers, but unlike most of the other species, three-banded armadillos do not dig in defense or to find shelter. They are largely nocturnal, but have been known to forage during the day. Behavior The burrows of Brazilian three-banded armadillo Tolypeutes tricinctus rolled into a defensive ballĪrmadillos are chiefly solitary, but this species will occasionally travel in small family groups of up to three members. Other foods include mollusks, worms, fruit, and carrion. When it detects prey, it frantically digs a hole and thrust its nose into it, using its long, sticky tongue to lap up any insects it may find. It finds food by shuffling slowly along with its nose to the ground. The main staples of its diet are ants and termites, which it can smell through up to 20 centimeters of soil. There is an abundance of cactus-like plants in the northern reaches of its range. The Brazilian three-banded armadillo lives primarily in open savannahs ( Cerrado) and dry woodlands ( Caatinga), where low rainfall and poor soil limit the vegetation to tall, woody grasses, scattered bushes, and gnarled trees. They are rarely seen west of 50°W longitude. Ecology Range and habitat Īs its name suggests, the Brazilian three-banded armadillo is indigenous to Brazil, living primarily in the northeastern part of the country, just south of the equator. The teeth are soft and peg-like, adapted solely for smashing the exoskeletons of insects. When the armadillo rolls into a defensive ball, the ears are tucked into the shell and the head and tail interlock to seal the shell completely. This higher capacity for thermoregulation allows them to survive in climates too arid for some of the other armadillo species. The loose armor also creates a layer of air between the shell and the body, which insulates the animal. This is because their armor is slightly looser than that of other armadillo genera, which allows for greater freedom of movement. The genus Tolypeutes, which includes both the Brazilian and southern species of three-banded armadillos, is unique in the ability to roll up in a tight, almost impenetrable ball. The underside of the body and the inner surfaces of the legs have no armored protection, and are covered instead by long, coarse hair. This armor covers the back, sides, head, tail, ears, and outside surfaces of the legs. The armor is composed of ossified dermal scutes covered by nonoverlapping, keratinized epidermal scales, which are connected by flexible bands of skin. Anatomy īrazilian three-banded armadillos have a head-and-body length of about 22 to 27 cm (8.7 to 10.6 in) and the tail is between 6 and 8 cm (2.4 and 3.1 in) long. It was known as kwaráu in the extinct Huamoé language of the Serra Negra in Pernambuco State, Brazil, and as ˈkʌ̨́ñíkį̀ in the extinct Kambiwá language of Barreira, Petrolândia, Pernambuco. It has suffered a 30% decline in population in the last 10 years. It is one of only two species of armadillo that can roll into a ball (the other is the southern three-banded armadillo). The Brazilian three-banded armadillo ( Tolypeutes tricinctus) is an armadillo species endemic to eastern Brazil, where it is known as tatu-bola ( Portuguese pronunciation:, lit.
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