However like all armadillos, the Giant Armadillo is no exception and it is hunted for its meat. But all anteaters are ecologically important as they help to control the termite and ant populations within their ranges especially those of the Acoushi or leaf-cutter ants. Some indigenous cultures believe that the Giant Armadillo can be the physical form of ‘Jumbie’ or wicked spirits. Giant Armadillo (Photo courtesy of Iwokrama) Armadillos have a specialized diet and feed mainly on termites and some species of ants they spend their nights roaming their territory looking for termite nests and can eradicate an entire nest in one night by eating most of the population.Īfter a night of foraging, they sleep in a nest or burrow in the ground during the day and move on the next night to continue foraging.
Giant Armadillos are incredibly powerful and use their claws to dig their burrows and tunnels and they can tunnel surprisingly fast when escaping predators. The female is known to give birth to a single young which is weaned between 4-6 weeks and the young will stay with the mother for about 6 months before becoming independent. Giant Armadillos become sexually mature between 9-12 months but there is little known about reproduction. Giant Armadillos are terrestrial, nocturnal creatures and mostly solitary unless they associate to mate. The head is conical and is protected by dome shaped armour with prominent leaf shaped ears on the top sides of the head. The head, tail, legs and the edge of the carapace appears yellowish in colour each front leg has 3 large claws, while the tail and legs are covered with tough pentagonal scales.
#Giant armadillo skin#
The body of the Giant Armadillo is armoured with bony scales which are dark brown in colour for the most part the armour is joined by flexible bands of tough skin about 11-14 at the back and about 3 to the front. Both photographs for this article were taken with camera traps, one in the Iwokrama Forest and the other in the Kanuku Mountain Range. They are generally rare in their range and their habits and low population make them difficult to see.
In Guyana they inhabit savannah and rainforest and have a preference for watery areas, forest islands, bushlands and woodlands. This neotropic giant ranges from north of Brazil, Paraguay, southern Venezuela, the Guianas and the extreme north of Argentina, but regardless of their large range, they are rare in number. Although they have never bred in captivity, a wild-born giant armadillo at San Antonio Zoo was estimated to have been around sixteen years old when it died.One of the Giants of Eldorado, the Giant Armadillo (Priodontes maximus) is the largest of the armadillos, and weighing in at 26 kg (approximately 57 lbs), is truly deserving of its name.
Little is known with certainty about their life history, although it is thought that the young are weaned by about seven to eight months of age, and that the mother periodically seals up the entrance to burrows containing younger offspring, presumably to protect them from predators. Because of this, the species is considered a habitat engineer, and the local extinction of Priodontes may have cascading effects in the mammalian community by impoverishing fossorial habitat.įemale giant armadillos have two teats and are thought to normally give birth to only a single young per year. In the only long term study on the species, that started in 2003 in the Peruvian Amazon, dozens of other species of mammals, reptiles and birds were found using the giant armadillos' burrows on the same day, including the rare short-eared dog ( Atelocynus microtis). The average sleep time of a captive giant armadillo is said to be 18.1 hours.Īrmadillos have not been extensively studied in the wild therefore, little is known about their natural ecology and behavior. Little is currently known about this species' reproductive biology, and no juveniles have ever been discovered in the field. The diet is mainly composed of termites, although ants, worms, spiders and other invertebrates are also eaten. Giant armadillos use their large front claws to dig for prey and rip open termite mounds. Compared with those of other armadillos, their burrows are unusually large, with entrances averaging 43 cm (17 in) wide, and typically opening to the west. They also burrow to escape predators, being unable to completely roll into a protective ball.
Giant armadillos are solitary and nocturnal, spending the day in burrows. A giant armadillo enclosure at Villavicencio's Bioparque Los Ocarros
0 kommentar(er)
