The Great Armadillo Chase Yes, I am an animal lover, but there are limits and armadillos exceed even mine. If you live in the South then you are familiar with this unholy species and I would expect that even most of my “Yankee friends” know what I’m talking about. For those of you who arent familiar with armadillos, just picture an over-sized mangy gray rat with a turtle shell. Since I am affiliated with a wildlife organization that promotes environmental education let’s just get the geeky stuff out of the way. The common name is actually, Nine-banded armadillo, and the scientific name is Dasypus novemcinctus. That’s Latin of course and I think it means, “Small ugly demon from Hell that destroys everything in its path”, but don’t quote me on that one. Southerners have many other names for them, most of which I can’t repeat here, but the most common and descriptive are; “Possum on the Half-Shell”, “Texas Speed Bump” and “Three Mile Island Roly Poly”. Still don’t have it? OK, remember that gruesome groom’s cake in “Steel Magnolias”? Yep, that’s an armadillo! You can probably tell by now that I don’t just dislike armadillos. I REALLY REALLY despise them and for good reason. For decades, most of the information about them said that their main food consisted of bugs and insect larvae. While it is true that they do eat creepy crawlies, we now know that half of their diet includes almost ANYTHING that’s on or just under the ground. That includes the eggs of ground-nesting birds like quail, doves, killdeer, etc…; to turtles, including the beloved gopher tortoise, our state reptile and a threatened species, and even snakes. Armadillos are primarily nocturnal and, with their evil but effective little claws, can devastate a flower or vegetable garden or your lawn in a single night. All that being said and even though I do despise them, I don’t kill them. I catch them… with my hands. Armadillos arent too bright and their eyesight is terrible. They rely mostly on their sense of smell and hearing to navigate at night so, if you move stealthy and are quick, you can grab them by their sturdy scaly tail. That’s when the REAL fun starts. It’s kind of like grabbing the tail of a real bull and holding on, except they can’t gore you to death and they usually tire within a few minutes. I figured that since they are an invasive species from South America, I supposed that they arent sentimentally attached to any particular piece of real estate anyway, so I usually put them in a carrier and transport them to some remote area… unless there is an ongoing feud with your neighbor in which case you can deposit them there at 3 AM. “Armadillo wrangling” isnt an Olympic Sport yet, but it keeps your senses sharp and it’s actually pretty fun, or at least it was until last night. I walked out of my mom’s house about an hour after sunset and heard Lazarus, my nephew’s dog, barking frantically. This wasnt his “Let me in the house!” or “I’m out of water and/or food” bark. No, this was his most serious “OMG! There’s a burglar/ snake / squirrel / escaped convict /UFO /monster/fill-in-the-blank-with-scary-thing!” bark. Lazarus was staring at a small overgrown area by the fence near his doghouse and he was growling. I instinctively knew that it was the armadillo that had been leaving holes everywhere. I didnt have a flashlight, but the area was not too far from a security light so I slowly skirted the perimeter until I saw the shape of that familiar hump. That’s when I went into my super-slow, “I am a ninja and a panther” mode. I would move one foot, stop and wait, move the other foot, stop and wait and it literally took me several minutes to move a couple of feet. I realized that I was also lucky because it was already very cold and the armadillo was still crouched between two fallen branches from the big oak tree. It hadnt moved an inch since I first spotted it. They don’t tolerate cold weather at all. In fact, if Ive never seen one out in temperatures that low before. I positioned myself to where I figured I had the best chance of grabbing its tail in the dark and when I was close enough … I pounced. It probably would have been my best pounce ever except my foot got caught on a vine and my “panther-like pounce” turned into a Three Stooges fall, breaking the limbs of the oak and I landed with all of my weight right on top of the armadillo. I was waiting for all Hell to break loose under me, but nothing happened. Lazarus was also confused. He cocked his head to the side and gave a whimper. I didnt move. I waited for the pain that comes when you break a bone or get stabbed through the chest with a stake, but besides the tree limbs (and I suspected the now dead armadillo that was underneath me), nothing appeared to be broken. So I raised myself up, trying to mentally prepare for the gooey scene that I knew I would see. And there it was … crushed almost flat to the ground … a very old … nasty... basketball. I realized then that I had acted without really thinking and I was still wondering how I could be such an idiot as I walked … straight into the electric fence that separates our property from Daniel Purviss cow pasture. Yes I really did both and Lazarus is still laughing today.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 20:14:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015