You’re driving down I-44 about an hour south of St. Louis. You glance at another dead opossum by the side of the road.
Look again. These days that possum is very likely to be an armadillo.
The armadillo population in Missouri has exploded in the last twenty or so years, to the point where the Conservation Department published an article in The Conservationist last November about living with these pesky creatures. ‘Pesky’ not because they are dangerous, but because in their constant quest for insects and grubs, they dig up whole lawns and golf courses. Consuming more than half a pound of insects per day, a single armadillo can do a whole lot of digging. In southern Missouri, sometimes a newly sodded lawn seems like an invitation for the armadillos to ‘come and get it—the digging is easy.’
Armadillos have been steadily dispersing northward since they first crossed the Rio Grande into Texas in the 1850’s. Relatives of anteaters and sloths, they are native to South America, which is still the home of most species. But the armadillo we know, the nine-banded armadillo, has been able to expand its habitat as far north as the Missouri River (and perhaps even beyond.)
Read the entire article (100KB PDF).
This article was originally published in the St. Louis Beacon.