Armadillo on World Cup stage

SOME creatures have massive public profiles; elephants, big cats and pandas come to mind.

Others live in total obscurity, never tasting the limelight. But ‘every dog has his day and cat his night’. Just now, it’s the turn of a most unlikely animal to ‘strut and fret his hour upon the stage and then (be) heard no more’. The creature’s showbiz name is ‘Fuleco’, a concoction of ‘futebol’, Portuguese for ‘football’, and ‘ecologia’ meaning ‘ecology’. The three-banded armadillo, a shy little forest dweller, has become the official mascot of the 2014 World Cup Tournament. The choice is apt; like the hedgehog, the armadillo rolls itself into a ball when danger threatens.

‘Armadillo’ means ‘little armed creature’ in Spanish; this animal equivalent of the medieval knight wears thick bony armour. The defence is effective; only pumas and jaguars can penetrate it and there’s a bonus; the armadillo need not dig a defensive burrow. It may even hold the plates of its armour partially open when confronted by an enemy. Once the attacker makes physical contact, it snaps the plates shut, frightening the would-be predator. A baby armadillo can roll into a ball within hours of being born.

About 95 million years ago, the evolutionary line that led to them separated from the one which gave rise to us. According to Richard Dawkins, this was the time of our 35 millionth great grandparents. What happened next was down to diet. Some of the armadillo’s ancestral group became vegetarians. Their descendents today are the sloths, the slowest, most laid-back, mammals on Earth. Dublin Zoo has two-toed sloths, which sleep for 15 hours a day, hanging upside-down from tree branches. Digesting a meal can take a month. Like cattle, sloths need multi-chambered stomachs to deal with the vegetation they eat. Although notoriously slow when moving around, a sloth can turn its head quickly through 280°. One extinct species, weighing three to four tonnes, was the size of an elephant. A ground-dweller, it probably knocked over trees to get at leaves, as elephants do today.

The armadillos developed from an animal-eating branch of the same tribe as the sloths. They too have prominent claws with which they dig for grubs. Twenty species survive. South America, a giant island just separated from Africa when armadillos evolved, remains their true home; Paraguay has a record nine species. The giant armadillo, as big as a sheep, can be one and a half metres long. The smallest, the pink fairy armadillo, does not exceed 11cm. Some species, including Fuleco, feed on ants and termites; they can smell them through 20cm of soil.

A major event in armadillo history occurred three million years ago; the tectonic plate carrying South America collided with the North American one, creating the Isthmus of Panama. This animal equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall had profound ecological consequences. During the ‘great American animal exchange’ which followed, some armadillos emigrated to what is now the southern United States. Among them were giants with spiky clubs at the ends of their tails, used to ward off predators such as sabre-toothed cats. Alas, like the cats, they are now extinct.

Only one armadillo species, the nine-banded, has survived in the United States. It shares a weakness with the European hedgehog; both animals are their own worst enemies where road safety is concerned. The hedgehog rolls itself into a ball as a vehicle bears down on it. The armadillo jumps into the air when alarmed, colliding with the axel or bottom of a truck which might otherwise pass safely over it. Crossing rivers was a particular hazard for medieval knights; if a horse stumbled, the rider could end up in the water where his heavy armour dragged him down to a watery grave. The Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick 1st, died this way. The equally weighty armadillo, however, has a trick up its sleeve; it swallows air, swelling its tummy, balloon-style, before entering the water. It can also stay submerged for up to six minutes.