“For their body size, armadillos have one of the largest penises,” Desbiez says – a mature male’s can measure 35cm. So Desbiez turned to another potential measuring method: the male armadillo’s penis. The giant armadillo’s teeth lack enamel and their nails wear differently depending on the season, making it impossible to detect age using either of these methods. What does this show us? That every giant armadillo is absolutely precious, that any threat to the species – deforestation, hunting, disease, fire – has a huge impact and can cause local extinction,” says Desbiez.ĭesbiez has also studied how long it takes for giant armadillos to mature and produce their own pups.
It was also thought pups spent six months with their mother, but Desbiez learned that pups don’t leave their mother’s home range until they are three or four years old. Researchers thought giant armadillos probably had two young with each pregnancy – Desbiez discovered they only had one. Isabelle’s behaviour helped clear up some of the misperceptions about the animals, which Desbiez says were mostly anecdotal. Her second pup, Alex, lived with Isabelle for two years until he died after being attacked by a puma.Īrnaud Desbiez checks the remote camera to see what images it has captured during the night. Her first pup was killed by a male looking to mate with her. No giant armadillo has taught Desbiez more than an adult female named Isabelle. It has also established education programmes, community fire brigades within the mammal’s habitat and giant armadillo-friendly honey. As well as the 350 sq km study area in the Pantanal – the largest wetlands in the world – the project has moved into two other locations in Brazil, the Cerrado, a tropical grassland, and the Atlantic Forest, a coastal rainforest. He calls this “the giant armadillo adventure”, because “what started with three guys working in the Pantanal has expanded to an NGO with 22 people”. Since then, he has been cracking the mysteries of the animal, upending previous notions about its breeding, parenting and ecological importance, and finding ways to protect the giant from extinction. That picture completely changed my life,” he says.
“A few months later, I got my first image of a giant armadillo.
Are armadillo nocturnal install#
Photograph: ICASĭesbiez’s first step was to install remote camera traps. Isabelle the giant armadillo captured by a remote camera.
0 kommentar(er)
